MountOne | 102OTA First Light.
Don't Panic!
This guide is 99% images.
Index.
Setup.
I am in a Bortle 4.9 area, which is pretty poor. But tonight the skies are clear and the telescope is outside. You'll no doubt have noticed the Printed Equatorial Tripod (PET).
I have levelled the tripod, set the latitude to 51.7185°, and pointed the astrograph in the general direction of Polaris.
Guider Focus.
The focus for the guide scope is manual, but it only needs setting once.
Open Ekos and select the camera tab.
Take a preview image and check all is working and adjust the focus.
Capture another image, and readjust.
Adjust the focus again and capture another image.
You may have to go back and forth a few times to get the focus set.
Capture & Solve.
For the MountOne's GOTO function to work, it needs to know where it is, and what it is pointing at. We can sync the telescope using the Capture & Solve tab.
Confirm the Solver Action is set to Nothing before clicking Capture & Solve.
When first running Capture & Solve, Ekos will want some information from you.
Firstly, you'll need to have the Optical Train correctly setup. This should be easy to do as we input all the options previously in The 102OTA Software Documentation.
Click Capture & Solve.
The Solver requires Index Files, which are essentially reference data which it uses to match stars detected in any captured image to.
Once downloaded, the captured image will be checked against the index files to try and find a solution. This can take a few minutes.
Once a solution has been found, you can close Ekos and see where it thinks the astrograph is pointing.
Polar Alignment.
I have gone back outside and adjusted the Polar Alignment in the PET (I moved the mount by hand) and then rerun the Capture & Solve.
This can take a few attempts.
The more precise the alignment, the better the tracking will be.
Once you have the polar alignment set to your satisfaction, set the Solver Action to Sync.
Rerun the Capture & Solve.
The Astrograph and MountOne will now be aligned and Synced.
IC 405
I have pointed the MountOne at IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula.
Primary Focus.
The 102OTA is focused using the Focus tab in EKOS.
Before we can being using the focus. We need to set the starting position of the focus adjuster in the side of the 102OTA.
To do this, turn the adjust as far as it will go in the anticlockwise direction. It will hit a stop and will be unable to turn anymore.
After hitting the stop, turn the adjust 13 full rotations in the clockwise direction.
The adjuster should now be in the mid-position and we can now use the focus in EKOS.
In EKOS, the focus tab will adjust the position of the focal plane.
At the start, this will be at zero, in steps of 1000, adjust the focus going back and forth between the Focus and camera tabs.
Guiding.
If you have the SV165 Guider Scope attached, we can guide the scope via the Guide tab.
After ensuring the Train is set to Guide, and setting the exposure to 1-2 seconds, click Guide.
The process is automatic, and can take several minutes to complete.
When it has completed, Run will be displayed in the Guide Info, along with other information. I recommend allowing the system to stabilise for 2-3 minutes after it has started running.
Capture.
We will be changing Sync in Capture & Solve from the Guider Scope, over to the Primary optical train.
The process is identical to what we have already done for the Guider Scope, with the only change being to the optical train from Guide to Primary.
As before we Capture & Solver to find the position of the camera, and then adjust to where we want to point.
When we are happy, we can run a capture sequence.
Don't forget to capture some Dark images too.
