w0mbat Posted May 26, 2013 Report Share Posted May 26, 2013 (edited) Hello all, This is my first post in this forum and I am a complete novice with DDM mounts so please forgive any stupid questions. I live in south eastern Australia and have recently taken delivery of my DDM60 Pro and N10 astrograph. After months of building my observatory I am now up to the fun part of installing the mount etc. My question is about Home position. In the Autoslew manual (which,unfortunately ignores the existence of the southern hemisphere) it speaks of the sense of having home position near the reference marks so there is not much movement required to do a Homefind after power on. Of course, in the southern hemisphere, the reference marks are where the weight shaft points west so I thought I could set a new home position to suit this fact. So I position the mount with the weight shaft pointing west and the telescope pointing to the zenith and go to Mount/Set new Home Position. I press Yes to agree that I want to set a new home in the box that appears. Then I move the mount away somewhere and then click the Home1 button and the green Slew button. Instead of moving to the new Home that I think I set, the mount slews to the zenith but with the weight shaft pointing East. What am I missing here? It appears that either I have misunderstood something or the change Home position routine does not work or the Home1 position is not able to be changed. I have the ASA GPS stick so the mount knows it is in the Southern Hemisphere and has reversed the motor directions to suit. Any help would be appreciated. Ian Edited May 26, 2013 by w0mbat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeorgeCarey Posted May 26, 2013 Report Share Posted May 26, 2013 Hi Ian, I think you are getting muddled up between 'Home position' and 'Park position'. I was similarly confused when I got my mount. You need to set a new park position. This is found under 'Mount... Park Positions... Set new Parkposition'. Move your mount to where you want it to 'sleep' and then follow this sequence. 'set new Homeposition' is for when you are polar aligned, you have a good pointing model, and you want Autoslew to remember where the stars are. Do a synch on a star and then 'Set new homeposition'. There is even more confusion because when you switch the mount on you do a 'Homefind' which is nothing to do with the previous steps. The startup Homefind is for the mount to find refernce marks on the encoders. George Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w0mbat Posted May 27, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 27, 2013 Hello George, Thankyou, you are absolutely right. Its interesting how wrong connections get made in the mind when learning something new. I think the house icons in the park buttons sent me astray. Of course, actually hovering the mouse over the buttons reveals them to be park 1 and 2. Thanks again George Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalelieb Posted May 29, 2013 Report Share Posted May 29, 2013 Hi Ian, Welcome to a fellow SH user. When I started with my ASA mount, I was only the second user in the SH. Fortunately, most of the SH issues have now been sorted in AS and Sequence, so it is seamless for us too. Feel free to contact me if you have any issues on dalelieb@iafrica.com. Dale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josch Posted June 2, 2013 Report Share Posted June 2, 2013 Hi, I am also having a scope in the Southern Hemisphere. Since you are setting up a new mount and scope, did you encounter problems to use the polar finding routine in Autoslew? Did it work? or what software did you use. Which version of AS do you use? Regards, Josch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w0mbat Posted June 3, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 3, 2013 Hi Dale and Josch. Thanks for the kind offer Dale. Josch, I am about to attempt my first polar allignment. I have run into some issues with my dome rotation which I am working through first. I have installed the latest version of Autoslew from the ASA site. I would be very interested to hear about SH users experiences with polar allignment. Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josch Posted June 22, 2013 Report Share Posted June 22, 2013 Hi Ian, did you in the meantime had a chance to polar align your mount? Josch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w0mbat Posted June 26, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2013 Hi Josch, No, not yet. Weeks of cloud and rain and very cold. 250 mm of rain. Also had to deal with condensation problems I have posted about in Tips and Tricks. Soon I hope. Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkS Posted July 11, 2013 Report Share Posted July 11, 2013 I've had success using Sequence and following the 3 shot same DE method described in Autoslew5100.pdf. This is areally good document. After one or two iterations I get PA close enough to allow >20min subs using MLPT. It's very important to chose a star near the meridian in the North at an altitude close to your latitude. ie I choose a star at ~38N in Melbourne. Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josch Posted July 20, 2013 Report Share Posted July 20, 2013 Thanks Mark for this update. Will try to follow your recipe. Josch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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