From the past week, my HEQ5-PRO Synscan Goto mount has been playing up on me. For one, it displayed pointing error of about 15 degrees. having played around with computerized mounts for over 1.5 years while being employed at Opticstar Ltd, knew all the correct procedures. Initially I assumed it to be a mechanical fault. By checking it multiple times, I can comfortably zero in on software error. How?Checking the rotation in both axes, I find that the for a full 360 deg physical rotation, the readout is 309 degrees, and in DEC the readout for 360 degrees is a mere 270 degrees. One could at this stage assume encoder error.
I then took it out for a star test and found, over two consecutive nights that performing a 3-star alignment displayed the message "Alignment may be poor" and subsequent pointing error, while a 2-star alignment displayed "Alignment successful", followed by good pointing ability to pick out deep sky objects. I have conducted about 12 tests over two nights and the results are the same. I have to now update both the Motor control firmware as well as the Hand Controller firmware and check again if all is well.
By the way, I have called this report an Observing report, so the list of objects I observed last night were,
M15, M22: Globular star clusters.
M39, M34: Open star clusters.
M31: Andromeda Galaxy.
Almach: Beautiful double star in Perseus.
I then took it out for a star test and found, over two consecutive nights that performing a 3-star alignment displayed the message "Alignment may be poor" and subsequent pointing error, while a 2-star alignment displayed "Alignment successful", followed by good pointing ability to pick out deep sky objects. I have conducted about 12 tests over two nights and the results are the same. I have to now update both the Motor control firmware as well as the Hand Controller firmware and check again if all is well.
By the way, I have called this report an Observing report, so the list of objects I observed last night were,
M15, M22: Globular star clusters.
M39, M34: Open star clusters.
M31: Andromeda Galaxy.
Almach: Beautiful double star in Perseus.