Computer Issue?

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woldsweather
Posts: 114
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:07 pm

Computer Issue?

#1

Post by woldsweather »

I am trying to use SharpCap to platesolve . This was my 3rd evening. On the first evening it solved 1st time and I was on Andromeda shortly afterwards.
These last 2 evening I am finding SC virtually unresponsive or taking 10-20 seconds to respond. If I click on a drop down menu its 10-20 seconds before it appears if at all. Trying Stellarium, using Control 1 to slew that also was taking 10-15 seconds to respond. Same using EQMOD.

Camera is Altair GP327C and Scope Altair 72EDF. EQMOD cable is Astro Lynx from FLO.

The laptop is an HP G250 with a Pentium i3 processor and a couple of weeks ago I upped the RAM to 16Gb and fited a 1Tb SSD.

Can anyone offer any suggestions?
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admin
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Re: Computer Issue?

#2

Post by admin »

Hi,

could your computer be doing something in the background (running or preparing updates for instance?). I would suggest running Task Manager (press CTRL+SHIFT+ESCAPE together) to see what else your computer might be doing in the background.

cheers,

Robin
woldsweather
Posts: 114
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:07 pm

Re: Computer Issue?

#3

Post by woldsweather »

No it definitely wasn't . I occasionally used task manager to close one or other program and only EQMOD, SharpCap, and Stellarium running.

I seem to remember that the 32 bit version is recommended over the 64 bit version of SharpCap is that right? I haven't found a way of finding which it is. I could uninstall and reinstall 32 bit version I suppose?
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Re: Computer Issue?

#4

Post by admin »

Hi,

look at the title bar of the SharpCap window - if you have the 64 bit version then it will say 64 bit in brackets. Honestly though I don't expect the 32/64 bit thing to have any effect on this.

I do notice that all the things that were slow were connected to your EQMOD mount. If EQMOD (or the mount) was responding very slowly to requests then that could perhaps cause this sort of issue accross multiple applications.

cheers,

Robin
woldsweather
Posts: 114
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:07 pm

Re: Computer Issue?

#5

Post by woldsweather »

Robin

It seems weeks since there were clear skies and I think you said to send a pic the next time I was getting problems - ie EQMOD slow to respond to E/W/N/S instructions. We have a clear evening here in N Yorkshire. I'll take a screenshot and also send as FITS image in case thats what you meant.
woldsweather
Posts: 114
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:07 pm

Re: Computer Issue?

#6

Post by woldsweather »

Tonights story so far:

I polar aligned with Polemaster then opened Stellarium and connected to the mount then tried to slew to Alcor.
Nothing then tried slew, nothing.
I then opened SharpCap and fiddled with exposure and gain. No stars. Well this would be because I aligned my laser with the main scope this afternoon so I manually slewed to the moon and refocused and set gain and exp. I selected lunar tracking and as you will below despite saying its lunar tracking the moon is drifting out of shot.
When I got the moon in shot neither the E/W/N/S slew controls in SharpCap nor EQMOD would move the camera.

Video here:

https://youtu.be/AIhEvoIDpy8
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Re: Computer Issue?

#7

Post by admin »

Hi,

looks like your mount was confused about the position that it was pointing at - in the video you can see that the Alt was reading as 00:00:00 and the Az was 90:00:00, and neither were changing.

Now, you obviously were not pointing exactly at the eastern horizon, so something is wrong. The fact that the figures were not changing also indicate tracking was not active (maybe that stopped because the software thinks the horizon has been reached).

My first guess is that the home position alignment of the mount has been lost. The way to fix this is to park the mount and see if it goes to the normal park position (by default this is weights down, scope up, pointing at polaris, but can be customized). If it does *not* go to the normal park position, unlock the clutches, move the mount to the normal position manually and lock the clutches again. Now if you unpark, things should be back to normal.

cheers,

Robin
woldsweather
Posts: 114
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:07 pm

Re: Computer Issue?

#8

Post by woldsweather »

Hi Robin thanks for the reply. I have just posted this eleswhere so I'll paste it here with a lot of details on the problem I am experiencing, even after resetting to the home position as you say.

Gear includes:


Altair 72 EDF

Altair GPCAM327C

Windows laptop recently upgraded with a 1Tb SSD, 16Gb RAM and Windows 10 reinstalled. PC has only the required Astrophotography software on it.

Mount EQM-35 PRO

EQMOD cable from FLO.


Software being used is Stellarium, SharpCap, Polemaster for Polar Alignment and of course EQMOD


After Polar Aligning last night I then slewed to Mizar. The scope points nowhere near. After 3 hours of repeatedly going through parking to home position, trying the same again, platesoving, It finally mysteriously platesolved and I then slewed to Capella. That was in shot so I slewed to Andromeda. Andromeda was showing in to top 10% of the screen so I wanted to centre it. However I tried in whatever speed with the telescope controls in SharpStar or using EQMOD I couldn't move Andromeda. Then suddenly the mount set up and pointed into the ground. At that point I gave up and went to bed I have pain from a medical condition when its cold and last night was the first frost of the season.


Regarding the scope controls that appear at the bottom right of SharpCap I have never been able to move the mount with these.


I have it all set up in the garden now. The mount will move using EQMOD but not with SC and sometimes theres a deleay of 5-20 seconds before anything happens. When trying platesolving I would manually set sidereal tracking but on a rare occasion when it platesolved I would get a message that it cant sync when the mount isn't tracking. It just stops tracking by itself.


At one point I was focussed on the moon (and however I tried to focus it never looked really sharp to me. The response after turning the fine focusser could be 10-20 secs. Also in Liveview you see the shimmering of the moon and craters focussed and unfocussed due to the atmosphere and occasionally it would just freeze for 5-10 seconds.


Trying it in the garden just now, another thing to add is that if I try to adjust exposure or gain then clicking a drop down menu can take 10-20 seconds to come up.


I'm totally at a loss what to do. The only 4 clear evenings since it became dark enough have been lost to the above.


I would greatly appreciate some help.
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