Thanks for sharing, Fatboy! I was looking at that video, but I'm scared to try it... I'm going to bookmark it and keep it handy, just in case.
I think my guiding is actually pretty good. This is what I got from Andy at PHD2:
I took a look at your latest log. You're getting decent calibrations and the guiding is not bad. From about 1:21 to about 1:30 (before the sky conditions were deteriorating) you were getting about 1 arc-second guide error which is not bad at all, about at the limit of what the mount can deliver. The key to that result was that there was a small amount dec drift from the polar alignment offset, enough to keep the dec axis corrections always going south. This avoided the problems with the mount's dec backlash (the dec axis cannot easily handle changing direction of dec corrections.) So to answer your question about drift alignment I would say sure, you can try it but be aware that tuning your polar alignment below 5-6 arc-minutes error will almost certainly make your guiding worse.
You can ask in a mount-specific forum to see if your dec backlash can be tuned, but be careful not to go too far and introduce binding in the dec axis which is worse than just backlash.
I think I understand the
CCD suitability calculator now that @JayTee shared with me lol and if I'm not wrong, I'm getting some pretty good results for the AVX!
I was able to get this shot last night before the clouds rolled in. This is a single sub at 300 sec:
I was having a terrible time with dew... But my stars look great! I'm going to try to repeat what I did last night and hope for the same results. If the
DEC backlash causes me too many problems, I'll consider doing it.
I do have 2 questions though:
1) What kind of grease did you use? The guy in the video uses the lithium grease, and I heard that's not that good to use, and that superlube or bicycle grease is better.
And 2) If you know, do you think it would be a good idea to look at
PEC before adjusting the backlash, or after? Just in case the other night was a fluke and I do have to improve my backlash.
Thanks again, Fatboy and Jim! I appreciate it.
-James W.
Telescope: Explore Scientific 80mm FCD100 Triplet APO Refractor
Mount: EQ6-R Pro
Cameras: ZWO ASI1600mm Pro (Cooled) |
Canon DSLR EOS T7i
Auto-guiding: ZWO ASI120mm-Mini +
Astromania 50mm Guidescope
Filters: ZWO 31mm Ha/Oiii/Sii 7nm + LRGB | Orion 2" Skyglow Filter
Accessories: Explore Scientific 2" Field Flattener, ZWO EFW 8 Position
Software: APT, SharpCap Pro, PHD2, CPWI | PixInsight, DeepSkyStacker, Photoshop
Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/186194203@N06/18B629