Debugging my FLI camera

My FLI ML16070 showed some issues: from time to time, it seems as if the shutter didn't open or opened slow or such. And then a few days ago, the camera completely failed (didn't turn on at all anymore).

I sent it to FLI and received the following comments:

"It appears as though somehow insects had managed to get in there and caused quite a problem! Honest, we've never seen this either!"

"I checked with Greg and the only thing he can think of is that something (one of them) got stuck in shutter just enough to make room for more"

... so, there you have it: debugging is still a thing!

Replacing the focuser on the RH200

First, I need to replace that stock focuser of the RH200 with the FLI Atlas focuser (even Officina Stellare recommends to use the Atlas over their own focuser ...)

Here is the scope before doing anything:

First, we have to remove the four tip-tilt screws:

To take of the entire backplate with the focuser attached:

Then remove the four screws on the inside that hold the focuser in place:

I struggled to remove the long screw that the focuser is running up and down on:

... until I realized that it had a tiny set screw on the focuser knob that had to be loosened first:

Now it was easy to remove the whole focuser

Attach the focuser to the plate and put the whole plate back on:

And finally attach the Atlas focuser:

Yei!!!

A Officina Stellare RH200 Veloce!!!

I was so excited about receiving this scope that I forgot to take any photos about unpacking it or such... Can't wait to try it out. Though it will take a while:

• First, I need to install the Atlas Focuser
• Collimate the primary mirror and front plate (if necessary)
• Align the imaging train to be absolutely straight

Wrong mount detected in firmware

... and after all these days, I just realized that my firmware / keypad thinks that my mount is a GM 2000HPS (not 1000)!!! I looked into the keypad settings but didn't find any place to set this - I also looked if there is a way to reset the firmware to factory defaults - but that also doesn't seem to be possible.

Upon further investigation, the wrong mount is also displayed in the ASCOM driver and the MGBox software.

At this point, I contacted Tolga (from Tolga Astro where I bought my mount) and asked for help.

Update December 4th:
The support from 10Micron contacted me and asked to send in a log file from their mount logger app (I love it if companies have good logging software that you can run and they can use for further diagnosis). They also wanted to see a photo of the control box of the mount:

... this one also says GM1000!!! :-(

10Micron sent me a "Mount Remote" app that I can use to connect to the mount and they can use it to diagnose it from the distance. Very cool. Installation was almost straight forward. Initially the vcruntime140.dll was missing, but I could download and install this from Microsoft. Now, I'm waiting for 10Micron to connect and hopefully find out what's wrong.

Update December 5th:
The engineers at 10Micron analyzed my mount and determined that at some point a configuration file was corrupted during shutdown. Which isn't a problem as they get restored automatically. Only that the program restored the wrong configuration file (for a 2000HPS mount). So, now everything should work again. Yei!!!

Incomplete Slews with the 10MIcron mount

When using the 10Micron mount, I noticed that slews seem to be very inaccurate (with or without a model or alignment). Upon further analysis, it turns out that all slews are incomplete.

E.g. starting the mount from it's park position (RA 1h20min, DEC 89° 32') to Neptune (RA 22h 53min, DEC -8° 6')

	RA	DEC
Park	1h 20min	89° 32'
1. Slew	23h 42min	25° 54'
2. Slew	23h 11min	3° 55'
3. Slew	23h 1min	-3° 34'
4. Slew	22h 57min	-6° 11'
5. Slew	22h 54min	-7° 37'
...
Neptune	22h 53min	-8° 6'

I.e. the mount gets closer (each time about 66%) but never reaches. Initially I thought that this would be some timeout issue, but then the mount would slew the same amount each time. But that's not the case. This happens when using the keypad, the virtual keypad, software (TSX or SGPro) or through the API (e.g. from ModelCreator). It also happens both with the 12V power supply and the 110V power supply.

No idea what this is - and I also asked on the 10Micron forum.

---

Update: It turned out to be caused by the other problem that I had (that the control box thought my mount is a GM 2000HPS). Once that was fixed, this issue was gone. Yei!

New Mount: 10Micron GM1000 - First time out

With everything in place, I could finally take the mount out for the first time!!!

First, I wanted to try out the rough polar alignment with the green laser pointer on the scope. But either the laser is broken or WAY too weak, but I could not see a beam at all :-( So, scrap that idea.

Now, rough polar alignment turned out to be tricky. The 10Micron mount uses simple star alignments for polar alignment (3 stars for a rough alignment, a full model for exact polar alignment). But when the mount is not even nearly polar aligned these are difficult through a camera as the I can't use "Closed Loop Slew" in TSX or plate solving as the it is WAY too far off.

So, as I want to use the mount unguided anyway, I decided to remove my good, old Borg scope + Lodestar guider and replace it with a simple red dot finder:

Another nice side-effect of this is that there WAY less weight on the scope now. I could move my counterweights significantly up - maybe I can even get rid of the smaller one completely!!!

With a rough polar alignment, I tried various of the 10Micron functions:

1. Balance check
I really like that they put this into the functionality of the keypad. The mount moves the scope into specific positions and measures on both sides if any creates more or less friction. Measuring in RA was quick and showed that I was only 0.01% off (everything below 0.04% is considered enough for good, stable imaging).
For the DEC measurement, the tripod became an issue. As the mount is pointed almost straight to the side and moves the scope all the way from one side to the other, my filter wheel collided with the tripod and stopped the whole procedure:

This is another reason why I like the AP Eagle pier (the other one being that it has better possibilities to fix all the boxes).

The good news is that there is a dialog box asking for confirmation before slewing to the other point. At that moment, I can slew the scope further upwards and then it passes. But I should really try to get an adapter from the Eagle pier to the 10Micron mount. For now, I'll probably move the filter wheel around and point it upwards.

2. Orthogonality (cone error)
From the various alignment points, the mount calculates the orthoganility error. In my case it was 0!!!

3. Polar alignment
Now, the polar alignment was fairly easy. Select it in the keypad and do the usual azimuth/altitude adjustment to center the star.
While doing the alignment, I noticed two things:

• to adjust the mount in Azimuth, the four screws that fix the mount to the tripod have to be loosened. And of course, I have to remember to fix them again afterwards.
• the Altitude know has a significant amount of backlash (see above). It's not getting too much in the way of adjusting the mount, but it is weird that it is SOOOO much. Asked in the 10Micron forum about this.

But now, my mount is polar aligned.

4. Tracking precision

Without guiding, I measured the precision of the mount as-is (i.e. no model or such): << 1" !!! That's a pretty awesome precision!!!

5. Configuring in SGPro

The main difference in SGPro configuration was to switch from PHD2 guiding to "Direct Mount Guider". This basically doesn't do any guiding, but still does Meridian Flips and Dithering.

The other thing I wanted to configure is to not track too close to the Meridian to avoid that the filter wheel collides with the tripod. I measured that filter wheel collides roughly, when the scope is 5' away from the zenith. In SGPro, I can use negative values in the Meridian Flip settings dialog to indicate this:

... and then it got too late to really try it out ...

New Mount: 10Micron GM1000 - ASCOM driver

Apparently, the ASCOM driver situation for 10Micron mounts is a little tricky. There are two drivers:

1. The official driver from 10Micron. It can be downloaded from the 10Micron forum software section.
2. A driver from Per Frejvall. Apparently this driver was always more feature complete and preferred by many. But sadly, Per passed away last year and since then the driver is unsupported. Though it can still be download, e.g. here.

After reading a lot and also trying both, here are the main differences:

• Only the 10Micron driver will be maintained and extended going forwards.
• The 10Micron driver allows the mount to be connected via LAN or Serial cable - Per's driver supports only LAN. For me, the LAN connection is actually not to tricky as I have a LAN switch with scopes anyway. I can just plug it in there, give the mount an IP address on the subnet (192.168.86) and everything works.
  The only concern I have with the LAN connection is latency. I am constantly running Remote Desktop sessions to the NUC's on the telescopes and they often up- / download files to/from Google Drive. Not sure if and how much latency that adds. Just for slewing it's probably OK. But if I want to actively guide, then I'd rather not have any delays.
• The main feature that Per's driver has is to constantly upload refraction parameters to the mount for higher tracking/slewing accuracy. Although the latest version of the 10Micron driver seems to have a similar feature. Not sure if it is the same or not...

For now, I'll go with the 10Micron driver as it will be supported and developed in the future. But, again, if there are any real advantages I could switch to the other driver.