Manual meridian flip

Lenoil90

Would it be possible to include a button to manually force a meridian flip?
This would allow to flip before living the mount alone and be sure that everything flipped correctly.
Thanks!

w7ay

Lenoil90 Would it be possible to include a button to manually force a meridian flip?

Only if the star has already transited the Meridian.

A Meridian flip is not performed by the ASIAIR. The mount is the one doing the actual flip motion. ASIAIR merely issues a GOTO to the mount after the target has passed the Meridian. If the target has not yet passed the Meridian, the mount will not flip to a different side of the pier.

If the star has transited the Meridian, you can execute a manual meridian flip by stopping guiding, and then do a manual GOTO to the same star.

Chen

dan_paris

It would be nice also to set the time the GOTO order is given by the ASIAIR. I can easily image one hour past the meridian, even two hours depending on the declination, so I'd prefer to postpone meridian flip by that amount.

Kring

Dan, I believe that is already there, you can set that time

Photon08

Sorry for resurrecting almost 2 year old thread. I have a mystery to solve and I thought one way to solve my issue would be to doing the manual merdian flip, but apparently that's not possible.

My issue is as following:

I have SW AZ-GTI with wedge (running in EQ mode) connected via an EQmod cable to ASIAIR Plus.

I took the following steps:

Point the telescope roughly at the polaris (by adjusting the mount, wedge etc)
Turn on AAP and connect to it from an app (iPad or Android). Connect to the main camera (Canon EOS)
Turn on the mount and connect to Synscan Pro app (Android or iPad) selecting the EQ mode (as opposed to AltAx mode) . At this point, the information screen in the Synscan pro app has axis = (-90, 90), (Az, Alt) = (0, 37 N = my lat)
Start the PA routine in AAP app
To rotate the scope by 60 degrees in RA (as required by the AAP's PA routune), a couple of variations of this step I tried are (the result is the same either way)
- In AAP app, connect to the mount selecting EQMod (serial 9600baud) and use the automatic 60 deg turn by the app. It didn't work a few weeks ago (the mount turned way more than 90 degrees in RA), but last night it worked well.
- Do not connect the mount to AAP in AAP app. Instead, use the synscan app to turn the mount roughly 60 degrees.
Adjust the alt-az to complete the PA.
If in step 5, I didn't turn on 'connection' between the mount and AAP (physical connection is already made before step 1) in AAP app, do that.
I tried taking this step or not taking, The result does not change
- Turn the mount back (roughly) before the 60 degree turn in RA
- Turn off both AAP and the mount (power switch)
- Quit both synscan app and AAP app
- Turn them on both
- Restart both apps
Issue the Goto from the AAP app to Capela. When I do that, it's well past the meridian (it's hour angle is over 2h; it's in NW).
The telescope goes to a totally wrong position (pointing to the ground)
Use AAP app to move the scope to point roughly at Capela within, say, 5 deg or so of its actual position. Because it's past the meridian, the scope would move up and the counterweight would move down if I start tracking. - the first photo attached below)
Plate solve to make sure that it's pretty close to Capela
Issue another Goto command to Capela expecting the mount to move a bit to find Capela. Instead, it makes large degree turns in RA and Dec. It does find Capela (plate solve and sync to mount, etc), but the scope is below the level while the CW is above the level. (the 2nd photo attached below).
After this move, when I issue goto-commands to another objects past the meridian (say, Orion nebula in SW), it works well in that it goes to the correct position. However, the scope is below the level (and moving down) and the CW is above (and moving up).

Because my scope is pretty small, I can track and take images of targets in SW sky (Orion, Rosette, Horsehead, etc) without hitting the tripod for a couple of hours. However, I want to get this issue resolved so it'd not be an issue when my scope + camera are bigger/longer and have a higher chance of hitting the tripod.

What am I missing here? I came across this thread because I thought that if there is a way to manually run the meridian flip, I can force the mount to move from picture 2 to picture 1.

BTW, I also did the same exercise (steps 9 ~ 13) with Procyon last night instead of Capella and had exactly the same issue.

I also moved the scope to point at Arcturus (before the meridian: SE sky) and back to Procyon (SW) using Goto. The scope didn't make a flip even though going from Arcturus to Procyon, it passed through meridian.

Picture 1 (before goto; scope pointing roughly at Capella):

Picutre 2: after goto: scope pointing at Capella, but with CW and scope flipped.

Thank you in advance for any enlightening comment.

Photon08

It seems that it's a mount issue. Synscan app has Settings - Advanced - Flipping mode. By default, it's Auto. Auto means that in the Norther hemisphere, going to the target past the meridian is supposed to put the CW below the level (like in my picture #1). Somehow, 'Auto' does exactly the opposite. I'll try 'force' or 'no'.

Photon08

'Force', 'no', 'auto' : none of them helped, unfortunately.

Tech@ZWO

Photon08 Hi Photon08.
Does AZ GTI remember the eq mode after you repower it?
If so, please try this:
Power off and re-power it after you choose eq mode in synscan app, then don't run synscan app and don't do any operations in the app. just directly run ASIAIR APP and connect the mount.
Will the problem come up again?

Photon08

Tech@ZWO Thank you for the help,

As you suggested, I don't have to touch Synscan app at all I thought I had to, at minimum, select 'EQ mode' (as opposed to Alt-Az), but it turned out that it's not necessary. I set the mount mode selection to 'Eq mode' in Synscan app instead of 'prompting me to select between EQ and Alt-Az everytime it starts'.

Anyway, what I did is as follows:

After the PA routine in ASIAir, I have to go back home using the go-home button in ASIAIr's mount menu instead of trying to go home by slewing with an arrow in ASIAir (or Synscan app). That made all the differences. For the record, what I did is as follows. Step 4 was crucial to me, which I learned from one of replies to my post at StarGazerLounge

Turn on ASIAir and AZ-Gti. They're connected via an EQmod cable with the scope pointing roughly at the North pole.
In ASIAir, connect to the mount (EQmod, serial)
Run the PA in ASIAir
In ASIAir, go home using 'Go home' button in the mount menu of ASIAir
Go to a target past the meridian (i.e. Western hemisphere; e.g. Procyon) to confirm that the CW is down and the scope is up
Go to a target before the meridian (Eastern hemisphere such as Arcturus at 11pm in early April) to confirm that the CW is down and the scope is up
Go to another target past the meridian (e.g. Castro) to confirm the correct pose again.