Orpington Astronomical Society

Astronomy => Telescopes Etcetera.... => Topic started by: mickw on Apr 30, 2011, 08:13:25

Title: EQMod question
Post by: mickw on Apr 30, 2011, 08:13:25
Would I be correct assuming that if I move my mount to a new location, I would need to clear all "alignments and synchs" recently set in EQMod then start again ?
Title: Re: EQMod question
Post by: The Thing on Apr 30, 2011, 09:57:01
And make sure that EQmod has exactly the same observatory coordinates as Cartes de Ciel (or other planetarium). Hope your signed up to the EQmod forum, they mention these little gems regularly. If the co-ords are different your GoTos will be off (they say)
Title: Re: EQMod question
Post by: mickw on Apr 30, 2011, 10:12:39
Cheers Duncan I thought that would be the case, I had it all set up correct in Starry Night but now switching to CdC.  At least I've got something to do this afternoon now  :D
Title: Re: EQMod question
Post by: Fay on Apr 30, 2011, 13:21:40
I thought that as long as it was tuned to your planetarium program, re settings,  & were not going too far away, it would still be ok
Title: Re: EQMod question
Post by: mickw on Apr 30, 2011, 13:47:15
I think the problem would be that once you moved a degree away from home and your mount is not set up exactly as it was (direction and level), if you do a synch in the new location, your whole alignment is out.  You could possibly get away with it but it's unlikely you'd ever find your target easily.
It doesn't take long to synch on a couple of fresh stars - I Unparked, slew to and synhed on polaris, then slew to and synched my way down the  plough to M81 - it took less than 10 minutes - and that was with me doing it  :o
At the end of the session I synched on Aldebaran and it was pretty damned close without tweaking.
It seems like you can align as you go - brilliant
Title: Re: EQMod question
Post by: Fay on Apr 30, 2011, 14:21:37
yes it does not take long at all
Title: Re: EQMod question
Post by: Mac on Apr 30, 2011, 15:38:20
why did you change from starry night?

Mac.
Title: Re: EQMod question
Post by: mickw on Apr 30, 2011, 16:41:18
Quotewhy did you change from starry night?

Too memory hungry, the fan blows full bore most of the time despite cleaning, and most other programs crashed during a session (EQMod, PHD, SN itself, CCD Calc, APT or Nebulosity).  Doesn't seem to be happening with CdC.
All I've got on that partition is astro programs, plus I've maxed out the memory at 2 gig so I'm stuffed
Title: Re: EQMod question
Post by: Mac on Apr 30, 2011, 17:09:12
Have you tried reinstalling starry night?
Only i use starry night, eqmod, Maxim, and I never have the fan running full tilt,
Mines only got 1gig.

Mac.
Title: Re: EQMod question
Post by: The Thing on Apr 30, 2011, 17:10:08
Anything that draws a full resolution picture with a high frame rate e.g Stellarium (Starry Night maybe?) is going to use a lot of processor power and memory. Also I make sure I haven't got too many catalogues loaded and stars on the display, that can really slow things down whatever planetarium you are using.

CdC uses simple graphics and they only get redrawn at the refresh interval (60s I think as standard) or if you scroll about. I only need it to point the scope not show pretty pictures - I am capturing the pretty picture!
Title: Re: EQMod question
Post by: mickw on Apr 30, 2011, 17:30:10
Quotenot show pretty pictures - I am capturing the pretty picture!

Ooo you saucy bugger :D

Must admit I suspect I've maxed out the prettiness in SN and have all the catalogues - I'll take a look later and uglify it a tad  ;)

It is nice to see a picture of what you're imaging though just to confirm if it's supposed to be spotty, swirly or fuzzy  :lol: