DST heebie jeebies on my AVX

[Astroglide65]

Hello everybody,
Last Friday night I got set up and when the stars began to become visible I started the two star alignment followed by 4 star calibration and ASPA . It went so smooth, every star was almost dead center in the cross hairs on the laptop screen, I use Sharpcap Pro. The whole night everything I looked for popped right up on the screen. Saturday night I had my grandaughter over so I stayed inside. Sunday morning was the change of time back to regular time so all the clocks got changed. Sunday evening I got set up in my usual place and readied for the sky to darken. I turned on the mount, scrolled though the location/time settings and entered the correct time not DST and double checked location etc. I began two star alignment first with Vega and it was nowhere in the finder scope.....ruh roh, I had this problem last time change but that was my bad because I forgot to change time but that lesson was learned already. I slewed around until I found Vega, centered up and entered in then moved on to the next star, Altair. Same thing again.....grrrrr, it looked like it did when the times wrong but it wasn't so I slewed around till I centered up and the tried 4 star calibration but gave up after 2 stars way off.
I went back to basics and checked the angle of the OTA on the mount, yep 35 degrees, double checked the mount was pointing North. Polaris is barely visible to the left of my neighbor's tree and I do have a Polar finder scope in the mount but light pollution makes it very hard to see Polaris so I looked on screen in the cross hairs and Polaris was slightly high so I lowered the mount and left to right looked good. Back to setup again, 2 star alignment was way off and by now it's very dark and which star is the right one now? I went back to Polaris and did the ASPA on it, tried to enter in NGC 6992 Veil Nebula, it's easy to see but didn't show up. I did the precise goto, the star wasn't in the finderscope so I hunted for it, went back to Veil but saw nothing. By now this was very annoying , I thought this morning if I had tried to go back to DST would things have fell in place?

Did anybody else have this problem last night or any other time change? I did have a similar problem in the past where the mounts angle for Polaris was off but that was my fault.

Thanks,
Dano

[Astroglide65]

P.S.
I did the Factory Reset too.
Dano

[UlteriorModem]

This like this almost always comes down to the power supply.

Either low voltage, insufficient current, or a loose / shakey connection.

[Mac]

The RA clutch knob on mine was hitting the gear cover when slewing to east from Polaris. Couldn't understand WTF was happening as it would be great to the south and swung back around and everything was off. I didn't overly tighten the clutch so it would loosen up and the weight of the scope and camera cause it to move.

I took off the know and repositioned it so that when tight as can be it won't hit the cover.

The SKyPortal app gave me a problem in the past as it had the automatic time preference off and it was using EST before EDT ended.

[Juno16]

The RA clutch knob on mine was hitting the gear cover when slewing to east from Polaris. Couldn't understand WTF was happening as it would be great to the south and swung back around and everything was off. I didn't overly tighten the clutch so it would loosen up and the weight of the scope and camera cause it to move.

I took off the know and repositioned it so that when tight as can be it won't hit the cover.

The SKyPortal app gave me a problem in the past as it had the automatic time preference off and it was using EST before EDT ended.

Wow, thats odd. I had the same issue with mr RA clutch lever hitting the RA gearcase cover recently. Caused fits for PHD2 (and me too). Didn't find out until the next day. I repositioned the lever like you did.

Thanks,
Jim

[Astroglide65]

This like this almost always comes down to the power supply.

Either low voltage, insufficient current, or a loose / shakey connection.

Hmmm......I'm running off of a Celestron power tank, not to long ago I recharged. In fact it's being charged aw we speak. I'm going on a camping trip and I'll see when I get there if it helped!

Thanks!
Dano

[Lady Fraktor]

Branded power tanks are notorious for being overpriced and poor quality unless it is one of the new LiFe packs.

[Mac]

This like this almost always comes down to the power supply.

Either low voltage, insufficient current, or a loose / shakey connection.

Hmmm......I'm running off of a Celestron power tank, not to long ago I recharged. In fact it's being charged aw we speak. I'm going on a camping trip and I'll see when I get there if it helped!

Thanks!
Dano

I run my Celestron power tank for days but when the voltage gets low, the normal green LED was still on and not indicating it was low. But you could tell it was getting weak.

In fact, it never shows when it is fully charged, nor does it indicate when it needs charging.

[Juno16]

Great suggestion Tom.

At home, I use a Celestron AC power supply that delivers 5 amp continuous power.

I have had a Powertank for a few years and it works reliably well for short term use

Getting my mobile setup ready and have a marine type deep cycle battery to power the scope, dew heaters, and laptop.

Thanks,
Jim

[goldstar]

I am a little puzzled here about doing an ASPA on Polaris?
Polaris normally is not included as an alignment star as it is certainly not suitable.
If you mean that you aligned on Polaris before starting ASPA , then yes this is a reasonable way to proceed.
My usual method on start up with the AVX is to set the mount to its index positions and then roughly adjust ALT and AZ screws to put Polaris in the center of the finder and main scope even before switching on the mount.This way we know it can't be off by more than a degree or two unless the cone angle is REALLY bad.
Followed by a 4 star PA procedure and entering the correct EST should do the trick.
Then I have to ask why you judge alignment by the Veil Nebula? That must be some powerful scope to be able to see this easily visually.
Why not use any bright target such as Deneb or Altair to judge goto alignment?

Forgive me if I have missed something here or there is some info you have not mentioned.
The EST/DST change should not have been a big deal...unless of course as mentioned the power tank has problems.
I too started using this piece of junk but soon found as described above that the charging LEDs green/orange/red meant nothing.
I went to a discrete battery for 12 vdc and have not looked back since.

[Astroglide65]

I am a little puzzled here about doing an ASPA on Polaris?
Polaris normally is not included as an alignment star as it is certainly not suitable.
If you mean that you aligned on Polaris before starting ASPA , then yes this is a reasonable way to proceed.
My usual method on start up with the AVX is to set the mount to its index positions and then roughly adjust ALT and AZ screws to put Polaris in the center of the finder and main scope even before switching on the mount.This way we know it can't be off by more than a degree or two unless the cone angle is REALLY bad.
Followed by a 4 star PA procedure and entering the correct EST should do the trick.
Then I have to ask why you judge alignment by the Veil Nebula? That must be some powerful scope to be able to see this easily visually.
Why not use any bright target such as Deneb or Altair to judge goto alignment?

Forgive me if I have missed something here or there is some info you have not mentioned.
The EST/DST change should not have been a big deal...unless of course as mentioned the power tank has problems.
I too started using this piece of junk but soon found as described above that the charging LEDs green/orange/red meant nothing.
I went to a discrete battery for 12 vdc and have not looked back since.

I ASPA 'ed on Polaris just to see if that helped. It allowed me to, it's even allowed me to ASPA on Jupiter. I tried that one day out of just wondering if I could. I tried to set the mount to it's marks and centered Polaris on the screen of my laptop since I can't see it well through the Polar alignment scope. I couldn't even see Veil Nebula I was so far off location, my telescope is a David H. Levy 150mm.Using Sharpcap Pro at 2 sec exposure gain wide open I can see objects to verify they are there but I have to go long exporsure to capture them. Deneb and Altair were my first two stars in the 2 star alignment, they were waay off, out of sight of my finderscope. I've only really had the tank run out of power on me, it had been used a lot and not charged.