George,
The choreography for Auto Meridian flip is this: (remember that ASIAIR really does not perform the flip, it simply sends a GOTO command to the mount at the right time to the mount, so that the mount performs the flip)
1) ASIAIR stops the mount from tracking after doing one plate solve. This time is set in "Stop tracking x mins before meridian" in the Meridian Flip Settings menu of Mount Settings.
2) ASIAIR waits for the object to drift past the meridian.
3) At the time "Do AMF x min after Meridian," ASIAIR sends a GOTO command to the mount.
If the mount thinks that the target has indeed moved past the Meridian, the GOTO will cause the mount to perform a Meridian Flip. Otherwise the mount will not move across the Meridian.
4) ASIAIR confirms that Median Flip has occurred by taking another plate.
If the last plate show that a Meridian Flip did not happen, ASIAIR will repeat step (4) every 1 minute until the flip finally happens.
As you can see, there is nothing "automatic" about it. It is just based on timing.
As such, you must not set the hand controller Meridian Limit to stop tracking before time (1) above. Doing so will cause the first plate solve to fail, i.e., produce streaks instead of stars. This is pretty much the only critical thing that you need to set in the hand controller.
Your mount must also be aligned to the sky for this timing to be perfect. With mounts that have no encoders, this needs to be done by using stars (star alignment). With mounts that have encoders, you simply need to make sure that the mount is perfectly level and had been homed to the mount's index mark.
Remember too that ASIAIR depends on the plate solve before and the plate solve after the Meridian flip. Other programs use better methods (e.g., checking the pier side flag in the mount) to detect the flip. On the ASIAIR, you must make sure that the exposure time is set so that the ASIAIR is able to plate solve.
If ASIAIR cannot plate solve, it will not even do step (3) and (4), and because ZWO does not want to confuse the "Simple as 1,2,3" customers, ASIAIR does not warn you that Meridian Flip will not occur because it cannot do a plate solve! The mount just sits there forever. You just need to check the ASIAIR Log file to see if the plate solve had indeed failed.
Chen
