WalterT I followed your advice last time on beefing up my power delivery and destressing my usb cables and I haven’t had any more camera disconnect issues.

Ah, very good!

By the way, since I am in constant contact with Pavle (deepskydad), I asked him to print a ring (four of them, three different sizes) to replace my velcro straps. You can see him starting to protoype them here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV9MLETaBTA

Notice that the ring included a threaded hole for me to bolt that small angle bracket that is glued to the USB3 Type B connector, so I won't need that nylon stand off. I think Pavle (most known for his EAF mounts for RedCats and Camera lenses) plans on offering such a thing to the general public. I think a velcro strip is fine, but I wanted something even more secure :-).

As to the legs, this is what I have under my tri-pier:

They are standard concrete stepping stones from the local hardware store's gardening department.

The mount (RST-135) is so tiny, it is hidden by the dual saddle plate, ha ha.

All electronics, like ASIAIR and an eero mesh router, are inside the gray box. The tri-pier, mount, dual saddle plate and box are left outdoors 24/7 under a waterproof bag. This is on top of a flat garage roof that has easy access from one of the second floor room of the house. I only bring the OTA/camera and guide scope back indoors after use.

Ha ha, notice that even cables to the EAF are strain relieved :-).

Chen

WalterT From your setup from last time your pigtails look pretty solid, did you get those from somewhere or did you buy your cables premade?

Most (99%) of cables and pigtails from Amazon are junk; they don't work well at room temperature, much less outdoors in the cold. The 18 AWG ones that are sold at Amazon are more like 20 AWG; if you can even find copper in them.

But I did find a silicone cable from Amazon whose 18AWG really measures 18AWG (the one shown in the picture), and additionally the silicone insulation does not stiffen even a little bit in sub-freezing weather:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0785FJNBJ

Their paired cables cost 2x per foot compared to the junk.

I then bought the 2.1mm plugs from Mouser Electronics:

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/CUI-Devices/PP3-002AH

Mouser is a company in Texas that Warren Buffet owns, by the way :-). But DigiKey should also carry similar industrial grade connectors too. At $1.50 a piece, you can buy a bundle of Amazon special pigtails :-). But you really get what you pay for. Some Amazon plugs don't even have a proper spring to retain the center pin of a 2.1mm/5.5mm axial connector. I have bought and threw away a few batches of the Amazon pigtails.

What you may notice is also a dab of Gorilla Glue to seal off the hole of that plug. (The hole in the connector shell has to be drilled out to take a 18 AWG pair; I just use a tapered hole reamer for 2 or 3 seconds to enlarge the existing hole). The nice thing about Gorilla glue is that it expands and fills up voids when it is curing. Just be sure to check the cable to make sure it didn't short anything out. That then moisture proof the connector somewhat.

As an (retired) engineer, I go for functionality instead of looks. Like the old Saab saying "Form Follows Function." My equipment usually look utilitarian rather than for taking pretty selfies with. The Facebook crowd probably cannot stand seeing glue ooze out of their connectors :-).

Chen

Hi @WalterT

I think it may be worth looking at the Autorun_Log on the AAP. It will be in the log folder. The AAP keeps them for I think 12 months before deleting, so it should be there.

The last autorun I did included a meridian flip, see below.

As you can see the AAP plate solved twice to confirm the target was centred.
Even if your mount was not level the plate solves should have corrected the pointing angle and centered the target.
For me, after the meridian flip the first plate solve showed the mount 1.5° off target, then it corrected.
I suspect that your plate solve may have failed.

Check to see if you have anything different in your log.

2021/07/01 22:58:37 [Guide] Stop Guiding
2021/07/01 22:58:37 Stop Tracking
2021/07/01 22:58:37 [Meridian Flip|Begin] Wait 5min12s to Meridian Flip
2021/07/01 23:03:49 Meridian Flip 1# Start
2021/07/01 23:03:49 [AutoCenter|Begin] Auto-Center 1#
2021/07/01 23:03:49 Mount slews to target position: RA:17h21m41s DEC:-35°57'55"
2021/07/01 23:04:46 Exposure 2s
2021/07/01 23:04:49 Plate Solve
2021/07/01 23:04:52 Solve succeeded: RA:17h22m21s DEC:-34°26'58" Angle = 93.5498, Star number = 431
2021/07/01 23:04:52 [AutoCenter|End] Too far from center, distance = 263%(1.52195°)
2021/07/01 23:04:53 [AutoCenter|Begin] Auto-Center 2#
2021/07/01 23:04:53 Mount slews to target position: RA:17h21m41s DEC:-35°57'55"
2021/07/01 23:04:59 Exposure 2s
2021/07/01 23:05:03 Plate Solve
2021/07/01 23:05:06 Solve succeeded: RA:17h21m45s DEC:-35°55'2" Angle = 93.5515, Star number = 746
2021/07/01 23:05:06 [AutoCenter|End] The target is centered
2021/07/01 23:05:06 [Meridian Flip|End] Meridian Flip succeeded
2021/07/01 23:05:06 Start Tracking
2021/07/01 23:05:06 Wait for Mount Settle
2021/07/01 23:05:11 Start Tracking

Steve

WalterT

Walter, something is rotten in the state of Denmark (with apologies to Shakespeare :-).

Notice that the camera angle for the two frames did not change! Did you really observed that your mount actually performed a Meridian Flip?

Notice that asterisms of the stars around M27 all stayed in the same orientation. A Meridian flip should have reversed the RA axis (or both RA and Dec axis on some mounts).

For a sanity check, check the Meridian Limit of your mount to make sure it is compatible with the two times that you have set in the ASIAIR auto meridian flip options.

Take the scope out for a spin using common stars (or just virtual coordinates; which is what I usually use to test transits) as targets, so you don't have to wait for M27 to transit. Watch the mount, and also plate solve for the "before" and "after" camera angles.

The ASIAIR should be set to stop tracking (start auto meridian process) before the Meridian Limit that you have set for your mount, and should not perform the flipping GOTO until after passing the Meridian Limit of your mount. Add in errors of east-west leveling to the bounds.

Good luck,
Chen

WalterT I think the mount is flipping because I just now aligned the pictures manually in GIMP to see how the matched up and the image from after the meridian is rotated 180° compared to the ones before. This is how they compare:

Oh, OK, I was looking at the wrong thing.

So, it flipped but the image that it took was at a different location of the flipped plate solve? Weird.

Star trailing after a flip is not a good symptom, either.

Yeah, try a manual meridian flip. Don't use AutoRun. GOTO a coordinate just east of the Meridian. Take a plate and solve it. Wait until 1 or 2 minutes before transit and turn off tracking.

Now wait for coordinate to move past the Meridian (transit time is when RA == Local Sidereal Time), then execute another GOTO to exactly the same coordinate as the original GOTO.

Depending on your east-west leveling, it make take some time (4 minutes per degree of level) before the mount actually moves.

After the mount has flipped, take another plate and solve. Compare the solved RA and Dec with the GOTO RA and Dec.

Then do a Sync And Goto, and take yet another plate. Did the mount move in the correct direction to correct for the mechanical error?

The above might give us a clue what went wrong.

Personally, I avoid all the "auto" stuff in ASIAIR. I do my own sync-and-goto after each plate solve, I do manual meridian flip, and I measure HFD with the Detect Star tool to create my own V-curve with a program I wrote for macOS to set the EAF (using hyperbolic curve fit instead of the parabolic curve fit that ZWO uses), etc.

Chen

wvreeven next time you want to center an object because that way AAP at least knows what position the mount should be pointing at.

Personally, I do not use that feature myself :-). I use the coordinates from SkySafari (one of the few instances I find SkySafari useful; I can do without the eye candy otherwise), for example, find a coordinate between M81 and M82, and enter that into the mini-GOTO window in ASIAIR -- which you can also save as a Favorites if you want to go to the same location in the future; I have a BodesNebulas entry :-).

Heck, I don't even use the ASIAIR Auto-Center function. I do my own rinse-and-repeat plate-solve-Sync-And-GOTO-capture-new-image, since ASIAIR's auto-center is very coarse; perhaps only good enough for people who don't know any better.

Chen