45 replies to this topic

[fjhdavid]

hi,

 

When you use a star diag, you have sometimes an offset between eclips camera and your eyepiece. This offset is contant.

 

There is a option in setup/calibrate which allows you to substract the offset.

 

After calibration, it works very good for all the end of the session; each target are, after that, right in the center of the field of view.

 

You can even play with N/S and E/W reverse option in order to operate more friendly the scope.

 

BUT BE VERY CAREFUL, if you do a power off/power on cycle, you won't be able to do any new autoalign process. Every next autolalign will fail.

 

The only way to solve this issue is to "restore factory settings" and then do a new autoalign, but you loose the "finder center" settings and the N/S and/or E/W reverse settings.

 

I did many test: with only E/W reverse, with only N/S reverse, with both of them, and with combination with "finder center". You won't be able to do any auto-align after a power off and on cycle.

 

If you do a "finder center" alone, you won't be able to do an auto align after power off and on.

 

I did not test with a "shut down telescope" command.

 

I suspect that the reason is that during autoalign process, the LS-6 with take into account the slewing reverse or/and the "finder center" offset remove and then is not able to center the two stars.

 

Did you experiment these settings, and did you find a solution?

 

Francois

 

PS: of course, "sleep scope" and "park scope" are working as you don't have to do a new autoalign process for the next session.

[Mark Sibole]

With a park scope or sleep scope it is like shutting down a PC.If you just throw the switch it can corrupt things that is why nothing is saved.You should always park or sleep scope and just not throw the switch to off.

[fjhdavid]

and what about the "shut down" command?  should it be ok?

[Bob Arnold]

I believe the finder center option aligns the camera with the scope. If I remember correctly, it is an automatic function that can only be accomplished at night with visible stars. 

 

The scope slews to a star, snaps a picture and then moves the scope to center the star. It then takes a second picture to ensure that the operation was successful. 

 

I don't think it was designed to center an object in the eyepiece. After using the finder center process an object is at least in the field of view in the eyepiece, but not always centered. I do that manually.

 

My suggestion is to perform the finder center and then train the drives.

 

I hope that helps.

Bob

[fjhdavid]

in fact the "finder center" process is very easy to perform and very efficient.

 

you do an auto-align and then you choose "finder center" and the telescope slew to one of the star choosen for the auto align, then it asks you to center the star in the eyepiece (or the camera), you do it with the direction buttons and you "enter"; then the ls-6 takes a picture and do some calc.

 

after that, and during all the session, every targets are in the center of the eypiece (within 10' or 20')

 

the only problem is when you exit;

 

as far as now, I didn't find a way to exit and do another succesfull auto-align...because, even if I understand what Mark said, if you "sleep" or "park" the scope, and then move the scope to another place, you will have, after all, to do a new auto-align sequence...which failed...

 

it seems that "finder center" need to be done every time you change the place of the scope, which is not logical

[gfamily]

PS: of course, "sleep scope" and "park scope" are working as you don't have to do a new autoalign process for the next session.

 

You say you get Auto-Align problems if you do a Power Off and Power On following a Finder Center. 

if you have done a Shutdown Scope (which I would hope would save the offsets) do you still get a problem with Auto Align after doing a Power Off and Power On? 

[MistrBadgr]

When I had my LS 8, I always did the power off command to shut down and did not have any trouble when I brought the scope back on.  It may need that power down command to store the changes correctly.  I never used sleep scope or park scope since i would always take the scope back into the house after a session. (no observatory at that time)

 

Bill Steen

[gfamily]

I occasionally do a hard power cycle if my initial auto alignment isn't successful - and inadvertent power cycles are always a possibility if using an external 12V source.

It would make a big difference to know if performing a Shutdown Scope preserves the Finder Center adjustment AND allows a successful Auto Align after a hard power cycle. 

[fjhdavid]

I tried tonight "shutdown scope" without any success... auto-align doesn't work

 

I tried also the following things:

 

1- restore default settings

2- did a complete auto-align which succeed

3- do a "finder center" and E/W reverse

4- went into "park scope" and switch off

5- switch on

 

everything was working perfectly

 

then I did an auto-align directly from the set up/align,/auto-align

 

the first alignment star was right in the middle of the eyepiece (taking into account the "finder center" settings), but after, the scope went to a second alignment star, then a third one and so on, until I press "mode" to exit...

 

I don't understand where is the problem...

[MistrBadgr]

Some suggestions:

 

1.  Do some testing by first going back to your baseline condition where all of the auto align works and get the whole setup working and aligned.  Then to the "finder center" routine, then shutdown the scope with its shutdown command.  It will tell you when to turn it off.  Then turn the scope back on and let it do its routine for auto aligning.  See if it works and if an object is centered in the field like you left it after doing the routine.

 

2.  Do this whole thing again, except that you do the right-left swap routine, but not the object centering.  Then do the scope's shutdown routine.  Turn the scope back on and see if it works.

 

Let us know what the results are.  You will be using a different shutdown routine than I think you have been doing and you will be isolating the two changes that you want to do.  If just one of the routine fails to come back properly and the other one works, then that helps isolate where the problem is.  If both work correctly after the shutdown routine, then that would be an indication of trouble in the park scope or some other function that should be saving things and are not.  If neither of the test are successful then there may either be some damage in the programming in your scope or some physical malady.

 

It would be good to know what version of software is loaded into your scope....1.4, 1.6a,....whatever it is.

 

Regardless of what the results are, if you do this and report back, I will be happy to send it in to Meade if you cannot.

 

Hope this helps and good luck!

 

Bill Steen

[fjhdavid]

Thank you, I will do it tonight;

 

my firmware version is the last one I got directly from meade: firmware 1.6d

 

in addition there is an advantage with "park scope" instead of "shutdown", is that, if you stay "around the same place", next time you won't have to wait for the GPS acquisition, you just have to launch a "setupt/align/autoalign" directly!

 

Of course, you need to have the 8xC-cell in the scope in order to store the GPS values (lat+long+times)

[Mark Sibole]

The sleep and park scope only works if the scope is NOT moved.Any time you move the scope you have to do another star alignment.That is with any scope.Now if you sleep otr park the scope and do not move it you may not have to do an alignment.At least that works on the LX200.I havnt played with the LS that much to know all of its workings.I just use it for outreach and put it away after the session is done

[MistrBadgr]

I inquired about this problem and my answer back was:

"It will require troubleshooting with our team although the typical answer will 
be to do an update via SD card and if that fails we will need to bring it in. 
 
You can refer them to our 800 number 800-626-3233 for assistance."
 

We are doing some of the trouble-shooting now.  The only other question is, did you get the 1.6d software via an SD card from Meade or did you download it over the internet?  If you downloaded it, it might be worth downloading and trying it again.  If an error got into the code during the download, the likelihood of getting the same glitch in the same spot twice is slim.  Otherwise, it would either need to be a programming error somehow or something wrong with a physical part.

 

Bill Steen

[fjhdavid]

Thanks for all your answers!

 

here are my tests and answers:

 

1- Mark Sibole is right; if you move the ls6 after a "park place" then it won't work. I did a test, I just turned the scope 10° clockwise and when I ran a new autoalignment (from setup/align/autolaign), the fisrt alignement star was about 10° off; in fact, the park place do not store only (long+lat+time) but store something else!

 

2- I got my firmware 1.6d from meade who sent me a dropbox link and after I built the mini sd card without any problem. The file was zipped, so I don't think any errors could occur with a compressed file?

 

3- I tested yesterday the E/W reverse and I got two successive successfull alignment after that.

 

4- I then add the "finder center" and after that, I got trouble (for information, my offset amount is about 0.5° up and 0.25° left)

 

In addition, since my "finder center" addition and even with a "restaure default settings", I am since not able to do any succesful alignmnent!

It looks that my LS6 is now corrupted, what can I do? reload the firmware?

 

 

PS: I had an idea, could it be possible that the eclips computed center is yet near an edge of the Eclips field of view and that even a small "offset correction" can failed the alignment?

[MistrBadgr]

It does sound like your software is corrupted in some way.  I think reloading the firmware is the most logical action to take.  If that does not work, you may have a bad chip somewhere.

 

You could be right about the ecllips camera.  I took my LS8 on a trip one time and managed to bump and move the camera a little.  It was not off much and the center object function was able to correct for the new position.  I can imagine the little camera getting off enough to cause a problem, but not knowledgeable enough to say for sure.

 

Bill Steen

[Bob Arnold]

I think it might be a good idea to re-load version 1.6a instead of 1.6d. The new version is somewhat of an unknown.

Bob

[MistrBadgr]

Good idea!  The problem, as I understand it, did not exist before loading 1.6d.  If 1.6a is loaded and the problem still exists, then it is not the firmware.

 

I inquired about the idea of the eclips camera being off just enough to cause the problem.  I was relayed the message that if that is true, then the scope most likely needs to be sent in and re-calibrated.  Hopefully, that is not the case.

 

Bill Steen

[gfamily]

I inquired about the idea of the eclips camera being off just enough to cause the problem.  I was relayed the message that if that is true, then the scope most likely needs to be sent in and re-calibrated.  Hopefully, that is not the case.

 

Bill Steen

Presumably once you've got your "Good Alignment" message you could simply take an image using the Eclipse camera and see how far your final 'alignment' star is off from the centre. 

[fjhdavid]

Thanks,

 

In fact, I never used "finder center" before one week ago, and the firmware 1.6a is no more available on meade site; if you have a link to download it, I would really appreciate.

 

gfamily, good idea, I will take an eclips picture when I will have, again, a "good alignment...."...

[Bob Arnold]

fjhdavid, I am uploading the 1.6a file to Dropbox. If you send me an email address, I'll send you a link.

 

Bob