Fixing trailing/tracking problem? Please help! ioptron smartstar E8500R

[realflow100]

I am having some serious trailing issues with my ioptron smartstar E8500R ALT-AZ goto tracking mount

I've QUADRUPLE CHECKED that the settings are correct

I'm in orangeburg south carolina USA right next to family health pharmacy

I set my longitude and latitude to my exact location right in front of my apartment

it doesnt matter if I do solar system align. one star align. or two star align.
it just never tracks right

And if I manually slew to an object. it QUICKLY races out of view. because it doesnt adjust to track that part of the sky automatically. I have to slew to every object i want to track "automatically" every time. or it wont even try to track it

And it doesnt keep things in view for long. I'm constantly re-aligning and starting over

it doesnt have 3 star align.

the tripod is as level as I can possibly get it. the level bubble is almost perfectly centered

My exact settings are (my time and date in 24-hour time) which i cant change to 12 hour time. correct time and date
and 300 minutes behind UTC.
daylight savings is set to YES

longitude and latitude are spot on my location exactly.

What could I possibly be doing wrong?
Am I somehow aligning it wrong?
exactly how am i supposed to align it?

doing a long exposure shows obvious trailing at 30 seconds.
Every once in a while I get one good photo with sharp stars. but 99% of the time there is serious trailing

[Gfamily]

I don't have that mount, but is it the one that can work in both Alt Az and Equatorial mode?

[realflow100]

Only alt-az as far as I can tell. There is no ways to change how it operates or functions in any way. very limited options besides setting custom targets.

the only way to make it work in some kind of EQ mode would be to put it on a steep wedge. and fool it into thinking its at the pole of the earth by changing the longitude/latitude accordingly. but i really have no use for doing that.

[JayTee]

After you do a one-star align, does the hand controller (HC) give any indication that you did a successful alignment? Does it say, "Align success", or something like that?

JT

[realflow100]

Yeah it always does.

[JayTee]

Will it automatically slew to (goto) an object you select in the HC? If it does, how close does it get to putting the object in the FOV center?

JT

[realflow100]

it does automatically slew to things Somewhat close. but it really depends. theres significant up and down play and if the weight pulling in a direction from the telescope isn't consistent it might be off vertically. its not possible to balance it unless i use duct tape to try to strap something to it to cancel out the weight of the camera. but that just puts a bandaid on the problem

horizontally theres almost half a screen of play if i bump it.
at longer focal length its barely usable. it will just get me in the area but not really in view very well. sometimes it does get things centered.
but after a while nothing will be centered if i dont align to target on anything. but even if i do align to target. it still loses tracking quickly. i dont know what im doing wrong

Also if I slew to an object and forget to stop tracking target before manually slewing around it won't track any other part of the sky. it will try to track like its still tracking the old thing. which isnt in that area of the sky anymore. so it races away to the wrong direction. i'm not sure how to describe it.

[realflow100]

Anyone? o.O I'm stumped.

[KingClinton]

No idea about the mount, so taking a long shot here.

Can the backlash be set via the HC, sounds like it could be a issue.
Is it possible to update or restore the current software? My Skywatcher mount gave me a bunch of issues and a software upgrade fixed the problems.

Just a few suggestions to look into.
Or call ioptron directly and see if they can help.

[Graeme1858]

My exact settings are (my time and date in 24-hour time) which i cant change to 12 hour time. correct time and date
and 300 minutes behind UTC.
daylight savings is set to YES

Morning Realflow

I think you might have a combination of things going on here!

South Carolina is GMT -4 hours and you have set to 300 minutes. Try 240 and leave the daylight savings set to yes.

Not sure what camera you are using but the mount is not designed to carry extra weight so if your camera is anything above not very much this might throw it out. Once the alignment is out it will get progressively worse.

Could you clarify what you mean by manually move? If you move anything after alignment other than with the hand controller then the alignment will be thrown out.

I haven't used an ioptron smartstar so this is just me fumbling in the dark here!

Try the time setting at GMT -4 hours and try it with an an eye piece and see if the alignment stays on track.

Good luck.

Regards

Graeme

[realflow100]

by manually move/slew i mean just using the controller to slew around. it thinks its still tracking the old object at the new place ive slewed to. making it not track anymore. unless i strictly use goto only.

And I will try 240 minutes. my camera is canon 500D its not too heavy. it weighs less than my telescope

And i'm not sure something like backlash is even remotely an option I can set anywhere. Theres absolutely zero options to fine tune anything. no hidden settings or factory settings i can adjust at all.

For example if I "goto" on orion. it sorta tracks kinda. but if then manually slew with the controller to pleiades. its completely off and acts like its trying to track the part of the sky where orion was. offsetting any tracking. and it doesnt update in any way to take into account im looking at a different area of the sky.

I also highly doubt its possible to update any software or firmware on this. I dont even have the tools to be able to do that.

[Graeme1858]

And I will try 240 minutes. my camera is canon 500D its not too heavy. it weighs less than my telescope

Try it with an eyepiece just to eliminate weight as a potential problem.

Regards

Graeme

[realflow100]

Same issue. I checked by looking at a star near the edge of the field of view. it left the field of view after about a minute almost as bad as no tracking at all

using an eyepiece that gives similar field of view as the camera's screen does (about 40x)

[Graeme1858]

Same issue. I checked by looking at a star near the edge of the field of view. it left the field of view after about a minute almost as bad as no tracking at all

using an eyepiece that gives similar field of view as the camera's screen does (about 40x)

Ok, so if you don't think weight is a problem, try tonight with a GMT -4 hours setup.

I would still test it with an eye piece to eliminate all issues you can think of.

Regards

Graeme

[realflow100]

I did test it with an eyepiece!

[Graeme1858]

I did test it with an eyepiece!

Yes, I mean test it again with an eye piece at the same time as you test it with a -4 hours setup.

[realflow100]

I'm unable to set time zone on my computer to eastern standard time -4 hours GMT

it only allows -5 hours

so what really do i set it to??

How is -4 hours not an option on my computer??

[image]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... nknown.png[/image]

[Voyageur]

I looked up the manual for this mount. My interpretation of the settings is as follows:

On the handset menu, choose Set Up Controller
Then choose Set Time and Site
Under Set Local Time, set the local time. I assume you have a cell phone. The time that shows on your phone is Eastern Daylight Time, the current local time. If you do not have a cell phone, or it's broken, or whatever, then go online and type "what time is it in Orangeburg, SC?" and use that time.

If the handset requires a 24-hour clock:
A) If local time is before noon, set that time exactly as it shows on your phone.
B) If local time is after noon, add 12 to the hours on your phone and enter that number.

Toggle the "Daylight Time Saving" setting to show ether YES or a checkmark. An X means OFF, a checkmark is ON, but that may be different in your setup.
Press Enter

On the Setup Site Info screen, enter your latitude and longitude, using W for longitude and N for latitude.

I think you were to correct to enter 300 minutes behind UTC, because the manual says DO NOT COUNT DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME.

Try again at night with only an eyepiece, not the camera.

If it still doesn't track correctly, you can try using behind 240 minutes, but I think 300 is correct.

I don't know why you are showing a screen shot from your computer, but the settings shown in that screen shot are correct. Eastern Standard Time is -5 hours UTC. I expect there is another place on your computer where you can check to enable Daylight Savings Time, and it will make that adjustment, but there is probably NOT a menu where you can choose -4 EDT, and there certainly won't be a menu selection for -4 EST, because it doesn't exist.

I read your posts carefully. I realize that my post repeats earlier information and may instruct you to do things you already have done. This is not intended to insult your intelligence, but only to be as complete and correct as I can.

People are trying to help. If you make a post and no one responds immediately, please be patient. It really does help people to provide you with the best guidance if you list your equipment in your signature. This is just a common courtesy to others. No one is going to judge you because you don't have thousands of dollars worth of gear.

[realflow100]

daylight savings time is enabled automatically on my computer
And weird strange.
I have entered the time accurately down to under 10 seconds.
I have it accurately correct for location down to my exact apt number (almost right on top of the apt)
Daylight savings is enabled to YES on the controller

Also I have tried both ways. seems 300 minutes gives me most accurate tracking as far as I can tell (testing with the moon just after sunrise since it was cloudy all night)
it still drifts off though and i have no idea what could possibly be causing it.
it's absolutely positively level. and it struggle tracking even with 2 star align.

One star align is no worse or better

I will go to put my gear in my messages if I can find out how

[KingClinton]

If you are confident the HC is set up correctly, then the next step is the alignment.
Could you talk us through what you are doing when doing a two star alignment, if the mount is not building a accurate map of the sky then it will throw out your tracking and goto accuracy.
Which stars are you using and are they at least 60 degrees apart? Can you give us the breakdown on that?