Cannot Connect to Mount with ST4

rohandp

Hello,

I have the following equipment:

ASI Air Pro

ZWO Mini Scope and ZWO ASI120mini Guide Camera

IOptron Skyguider Pro Mount

Canon 70d DSLR

iPad Pro 11" running latest version of iPadOS (13.6) and ASI Air app 1.4.4

I have been able to get everything working though the ASI Air Pro other than being able to Autoguide. I've hooked everything up as directed (USB to ASI Air, ST4 Cable to Mount guide port). There is communication to the camera as I can see stars in the Guiding screen, but every time I go to select my mount it says "Failed to Connect. Open Guide Camera First". I have watched every video, read every article I can find online, and have seen many people having this issue, but have not seen anywhere how to solve the problem. Is there a step I'm missing, or is it a bug?

Thanks for your help,

Jason

PMTeam@ZWO

RohanDP wrote:

Hello,

I have the following equipment:

ASI Air Pro

ZWO Mini Scope and ZWO ASI120mini Guide Camera

IOptron Skyguider Pro Mount

Canon 70d DSLR

iPad Pro 11" running latest version of iPadOS (13.6) and ASI Air app 1.4.4

I have been able to get everything working though the ASI Air Pro other than being able to Autoguide. I've hooked everything up as directed (USB to ASI Air, ST4 Cable to Mount guide port). There is communication to the camera as I can see stars in the Guiding screen, but every time I go to select my mount it says "Failed to Connect. Open Guide Camera First". I have watched every video, read every article I can find online, and have seen many people having this issue, but have not seen anywhere how to solve the problem. Is there a step I'm missing, or is it a bug?

Thanks for your help,

Jason

Could you please record a vid of the routine and share with us at asiair@zwoptical.com? We tested on our side without issues. Thank you.

rohandp

I uploaded the video to an unlisted link on YouTube and emailed the link to the address requested.

Thanks,

Jason

PMTeam@ZWO

RohanDP wrote:

I uploaded the video to an unlisted link on YouTube and emailed the link to the address requested.

Thanks,

Jason

Thank you Jason, this is a bug that confirmed, sorry about the trouble. It will be fixed in the next version v1.5.

hfhenrichs

Hello,

I have a related problem with the polar alignment.

My setup is

ASIAIR

iOptron SkyGuider Pro, connected as On-Camera-ST4

ZWO 120MMmini as guide camera

Capturing is done with a separate Sonya6000, not connected to the ASIAIR. (I hope the Sony will be supported soon).

Using the guider camera with this mount works very well for autoguiding, without any main camera connected to the ASIAIR.

The Polar alignment, however, needs a main camera, so I want to temporarily use the 120mini as main camera, just for the polar alignment. As soon as I disconnect the guider camera, however, the mount is also disconnected: "Connect Failed, please open guide camera first". The combination main camera + mount without guider camera does not seem possible. How could I accomplish this? Thanks - HFH

PMTeam@ZWO

hfhenrichs wrote:

Hello,

I have a related problem with the polar alignment.

My setup is

ASIAIR

iOptron SkyGuider Pro, connected as On-Camera-ST4

ZWO 120MMmini as guide camera

Capturing is done with a separate Sonya6000, not connected to the ASIAIR. (I hope the Sony will be supported soon).

Using the guider camera with this mount works very well for autoguiding, without any main camera connected to the ASIAIR.

The Polar alignment, however, needs a main camera, so I want to temporarily use the 120mini as main camera, just for the polar alignment. As soon as I disconnect the guider camera, however, the mount is also disconnected: "Connect Failed, please open guide camera first". The combination main camera + mount without guider camera does not seem possible. How could I accomplish this? Thanks - HFH

You can not do that. While using the ST4 way, the Guide Camera should be connected first.

hfhenrichs

Thank you.

After reading other posts on this forum, I now understand why this configuration will never work: the ST-4 cable runs from the mount to the guider camera, so without connection to the guider camera the ASIAIR has no physical way to connect to the mount.

The main point, I now realized, is that the ST-4 mount connection is not needed at all for the polar alignment:

- set the guide camera temporarily as main camera (--> ST-4 connection is lost)

- point to Polaris (approx), finish the polar alignment

- set the camera back as guide, connect, and reconnect the ST-4 mount

- Start guiding as usual.

Works just fine.

Huib Henrichs

ddr23

Guys, I had the same bug with the "connect guide camera first" on the ST4 screen. What I did to make it work, is to change the mount (ST4) to another mount (any mount) then change back to ST4. Then it will be recognized.

Cheers.

hfhenrichs

@ddr23: this does not work in my setup (ASIAIR with latest firmware/software) : no mount is needed for polar alignement - HFH

hfhenrichs

@RohanDP: in my setup there is no main camera connected and autoguiding works fine. So using the same ASIAir version 1.4.4, the same iOptron Skyguider Pro and the same guider camera, I wonder what the problem you encounter could be. I assume you verified that the ST-4 cable between the mount and the camera is correct. The only difference I can think of is that I use an Android phone. BTW, I checked that the ASIAir Pro behaves the same as the ASIAir, in the sense that autoguiding goes without problems. HFH

rohandp

I haven't tried to run it without the main imaging camera connected. This seems to defeat the purpose a bit. The whole point is to control my imaging sessions through a single device. 95% works perfectly, just this one issue.

I'm using the ST4 cable that came with the guide cam. So I wouldn't think that would be the issue as it's brand new, unless there's a fault in that particular cable.

ZWO has confirmed that there is a bug in the software, and that they were going to try and have it fixed for the new software release. Hopefully that will be it.

PMTeam@ZWO

"connect guide camera first" on the ST4 This is a known bug and fixed in V1.5, thank you guys.

rohandp

Any ideas when 1.5 will be coming out?

PMTeam@ZWO

RohanDP wrote:

Any ideas when 1.5 will be coming out?

The public beta version planned to be released at the end of Sep.