ASIAIR PRO and Celestron Starsense

ben_eisenstein

I cannot se Polaris from my backyard so I use Starsense to do an All Star Polar Align. I now have an ASI294MC camera. When I do the first alignment and for example point to Rigel, I get a star field in my view, but not Rigel. I had to replace my finderscope with the AAP mount. So I know I am close, but don't have any idea how to get that first alignment star in without a lot of time spent searching. Anybody have a quick solution to this problem?

Celestron AVX
Edge HD 8
Celestron Starsense

Kring

I have same setup and can’t see Polaris either. But the ASIair’s PA works like pure magic. Have you tried running it?

My routine is NOT connect AAP (Asi Air Pro) to the mount yet. Just confirm your date, time, location are correct from the hand controller, then run starsense align from the hand controller . Mine comes back good, then I MUST goto switch position from the hand controller (I have CGX mount, not sure if AVX has switch position?, if not then just return to home from the hand controller. I’ve found for CGX that I MUST now set home position on the hand controller (these are both under menu/telescope) otherwise the AAP doesn’t work at all for me. So now your mount and scope are aligned, but you are not polar aligned since starsense doesn’t polar align.

Now connect the AAP to the Mount, take a preview pic, make sure in focus, then run the PA routine and it works for me perfectly. It’s good at this point to see if the home position is working in ASIair app, sometimes that gets reset or is just plain wrong…. If it starting going in wrong direction, stop it and then from the hand controller you have to set the home position again.

Keep in mind the AAP is not really compatible with Celestron mounts, starsense, starsense hand controller. From all I’ve read here and other forums, very very few people have them working. Unfortunately ZWO hasn’t worked out all the bugs and it does appear that they are trying right now either.