Asiair plus “go to home” not agreeing with the Mount hand controller

Dspital

I’m running a Celestron CG5. I start it up, go through the start up routine, start from index marks, mount is pointing North. I set the “Home” position in the hand controller, do a 1 Star alignment. It all works fine. I then turn on Asiair , it connects to the mount, but when I ask the Asiair to send the mount to Home position it doesn’t go to the Home position that was set in the hand controller, it slews about 45 degrees to the East of north. This has happened a number of times. Does anyone have an idea why this behavior is happening?

enaiman

AA is registering the "Home Position" the position the mount is found to be at AA boot up time. Whatever is set in your HC is irrelevant because AA doesn't read that.
Make sure the mount is in the position you want, power it up them power up the AA and that will be the "Home Position"

Dspital

Thanks for the reply. The mount is in home position pointing at the North Star before starting up Asiair. I start Asiair, hit the go home button in the AA app and it slews off to the East. So it isn’t registering the position of the mount when I starts up. That is the issue. At that point I need to free the clutch manually move it back to home, then I reset home position in the HC. Now they agree, but upon next start up the same behavior repeats. It’s a pain. I have no idea yet why this is happening.
Any ideas to try?
thanks

Dspital

How does Asiair know the mounts position at start up? If it’s not reading the hand controllers
home coordinates?

PMTeam@ZWO

Dspital The default Home Pos is the Position that the mount was powered on.

Dspital

@ASIAIR@ZWO#59071
Asiair doesn’t match the mounts home position when I start it up. The mount is started up, set to index marks, star aligned, then power up Asiair Have Asiair send the mount to Home but it doesn’t go to the home position set in the mount.
I don’t know why this happens?

jsmithsd

On all my mounts: Optron iEQ45, ORion HDX-110, and homemade On-Step I do not use any of the hand controller features. Move the telescope to the desired home position using the slew buttons on the hand controller, power up the ASI AIR, sync the mount using the ASIAIR sync button in the mount screen. Perform a plate solve with the ASI AIR, then do the power alignment and you are good to go. The ASI AIR does accurate goto’s and always returns to the set home position.

jsmithsd

Sorry that is polar alignment not power alignment.

jsmithsd

Another point, I had to turn off the internal mount encoders on my Orion HDX-110 using the hand controller and then all works as above with the ASIAIR. Before I did that I always had some weird offset on the goto’s. I have found that the first plate solve is important to the ASI AIR, it calculates your on Sky focal length and sets the home position. Polar alignments just work once that is done and goto’s are spot on.

Dspital

Hi, thanks for the information. I will give it a try.

best
David

Dspital

One question, what sync button are you referring to in the Asiair mount screen. I don’t see a sync button.

w7ay

Dspital what sync button are you referring to in the Asiair mount screen.

There is a green "Sync to Mount" button in the "Phone Info" section of the Mount Settings window.

Try selecting the "Demo Interface" as the mount. If the button is there, but it is not there when you select your mount, then there is something that is missing in the ASIAIR implementation.

Chen

Dspital

Yep it’s there when DEMO is selected for the mount, It is not when I select Celestron NexStar/Advanced GT. No sync to mount button.

w7ay

Dspital it’s there when DEMO is selected for the mount, It is not when I select Celestron NexStar/Advanced GT. No sync to mount button.

Yep, looks like another bug in ASIAIR. They need to look into it; I don't know why they are still refusing to respond to your initial message.

There is definitely a "set Location" command in the NexStar protocol, so the ASIAIR should be able to set it. This is from the NextStar documentation (the ABCDEFGH are the same arguments as in a GOTO command).

Your mount does not happen to have built in GPS does it? If if does, try turning it off to see what happens.

Chen

PMTeam@ZWO

w7ay Thanks Chen, will forward your msg to the devs. We hope to fix this soon.

Dspital

No my mount doesn’t have GPS.
I hope they get around to addressing this glitch.

Dspital

Never fixed it. Getting the Asiair and the mount to agree is a pain.

RoscoeD

I have the EQ6R Pro and not the Celestron mount, so things may differ. However my HC has never left the box. I set my unpowered mount to the home position (Polaris) via the index marks. m I then power up the AA and the mount. Before I do anything I go to the mount options and "Sync to mount". I then do a PA. After that I do a GoTo to something high in the sky. It will platesolve to get it centered ( I go "high" to do a PA calibration). after that it seems to work as designed. Maybe the HC is getting in the way?

Dspital

Over the past two years I’ve tried every possible approach to troubleshooting the Asiair in combination with the Celestron CG-5. The hand controller might be playing a part in the home index issue I’ve experienced, but other issues beside the that one is more annoying. What happens after a meridian flip seems to indicate that Asiair is sending the mount backward coordinates. The flip is successful but then the recentering sends the telescope toward the ground. Seems the dec coordinate is opposite to what it should be.. with each centering attempt it gets further from where it should be until it threatens to hit the tripod. The only way to straighten it out is restart the session. Very annoying. ZWO isn’t responding to the issue.

Tech@ZWO

Dspital This problem should caused by the incorrect home position.
I have a few questions want to ask you.
1 What is the mount position when you power the mount and connect it to ASIAIR?
2 Could you check if the mount info and phone info are sync in the ASIAIR APP - mount settings?
3 After the problem appears, if you tap 'Go home position' in the ASIAIR app, what is the position the mount back to?
In this case, if you press Go home position in the mount HC, what is the position the mount back to?
4 How did you connect the mount to ASIAIR? and what power supply you use to power the mount and ASIAIR Plus?
5 Did you submit the log in the ASIAIR app after the problem appears?
Thanks.

Ranger10x

Tech@ZWO Fix the dam problem please and soon, period!