I have a new telescope that I had out for the first time last night. I found that focus, with the field flattener they sell with the telescope (it works fantastic) is only about two turns of the focuser knob out of fully retracted. Normally, that is a good thing- with the focuser drawn almost all the way in, I think it will be more stable than if it is pulled out like usual. However, when I tried to auto focus, the AsiAir Plus tried to start the focus routine beyond the range of the focuser.
The best focus I could get manually was at step 23596. I set the limit for the EAF to 24500, which is fully retracted, or just a hair out. I went into the EAF tab, touched Autofocus, and set the steps to 10, which is the minimum you can set. When I started the AF routine, it gave me an error saying that the range was off, and to check my step settings. I then noticed it was at 24500. The stars at 24500 are pretty far out- I would be surprised if the AsiAir Plus could pick them up, so I think it is wracking it out too far. The stars are visible with my eye on the screen, but they are very out of focus to the point that they are very dim circles that resemble dust motes in a flat frame.
Looking at the AutoFocus graph that it was using to try to autofocus, it was shooting for a range of 25000 to 22000, which seems awfully wide. Manually focusing to 23650 is about as far out as I think the AA+ could find the stars. Can you narrow the search it uses? I'd like to set it to 23200 to 24300.
The only other thing I can think to do is to install the EAF on the micro focus instead of the main shaft, which I haven't had to do before. IT would require spacers to move the bracket out away from the focuser. It would be a pain, and changing the span of the AA+ search feature would be a lot better and cleaner.
EDIT: I just went outside (it is morning now, sun is up) and turned on the AA+ so I could get some screen shots to better explain my problem. The search graph is now scaled properly with a 10 step interval! So apparently you have to reboot the AA+ after changing step setting for it to apply. It works fine now.
