Guiding and parking scope bug

astrosatch

Hi!

Today I encountered on bug. Yesterday I started sequence and checked park scope and shut down asiair and went to bed. Today I thought that everything would be still and saw that the scope is still going on and asiair is on. When I checked subs, only 30 of 50 were done. But last few subs were bad and without stars because clouds rolled in. Dithering was turned on on every 10th frame. So my thinking is this. Because there were no stars asiair couldn't guide and dithering never finished it's routine. So it just stuck there never completing autorun and end session. This is not ok. My scope could hit the tripod and endlessly push against it. I was lucky this didn't happen. And battery could go empty also. This should be somehow attended for.

On the other hand, I just love Asiair. Good job ZWO. Keep up the good work.

Andrej

Tech@ZWO

HI Andrej

When enabled the dither on，the sequence would work follow the settings in dither

astrosatch

I think you didn't understand. If clouds come or other obstacle cover the guide star then there is no way that dither could continue autorun sequence. I made a test. I set dither to every 3 images and leave it to work it's way. Everything ok. Then I covered the guidescope. Star was lost but autorun continue sequence until it came to dither. It could never settle because there was no star to settle and autorun sequence never resumed but mount still tracked. This could continue until scope hits the tripod or baterry goes dead. Both scenarios are bad. There must be some kind of solution for this.

I belive many of us goes to bed and leaves equipment on it's own hoping that in the morning everything is parked and off.

Please look into it.

Br,

Andrej

PMTeam@ZWO

astrosatch wrote:

I think you didn't understand. If clouds come or other obstacle cover the guide star then there is no way that dither could continue autorun sequence. I made a test. I set dither to every 3 images and leave it to work it's way. Everything ok. Then I covered the guidescope. Star was lost but autorun continue sequence until it came to dither. It could never settle because there was no star to settle and autorun sequence never resumed but mount still tracked. This could continue until scope hits the tripod or baterry goes dead. Both scenarios are bad. There must be some kind of solution for this.

I belive many of us goes to bed and leaves equipment on it's own hoping that in the morning everything is parked and off.

Please look into it.

Br,

Andrej

Hello Andrej,

How about: pause autorun when dither settle timeout (new option, eg 30s) and still star lost. On the other hand, if the guiding can be recovered, okay, continue capturing.

astrosatch

Hello Andrej,

How about: pause autorun when dither settle timeout (new option, eg 30s) and still star lost. On the other hand, if the guiding can be recovered, okay, continue capturing.

Hi Ji.

Yes, that would be great idea. There could be more options. If star is lost for more than some time eg 1h, scope parks and asiair shuts down. It would be unnecessary to end session just because some clouds passes by.

What do you think?

PMTeam@ZWO

astrosatch wrote:

Hello Andrej,

How about: pause autorun when dither settle timeout (new option, eg 30s) and still star lost. On the other hand, if the guiding can be recovered, okay, continue capturing.

Hi Ji.

What do you think?

Great! Your additional info of 1h is very impressive. I will feed back to our team.

astrosatch

Thanks Ji.

Keep up the good work.

Andrej