Not slewing and not guiding.: Page 3

Not slewing and not guiding.

w7ay

Byrdsfan1948 What do you mean when you say "no guiding problems"?

Before being able to achieve 0.5 sec exposures and 2 FPS guiding on ASIAIR, I was guiding to the region of 0.75" RMS (total RA and declination magintude) and worse. Unlike ASIAIR, standalone PHD2 had no such problem.

0.5 second exposure was made possible by multi-star centroid (which appeared on PHD2 for a year and a half before ASIAIR, and on INDIGO as an implementation of DOMINO before that).

I can now guide to better than 0.5" total RMS with my strain wave mount, which is better than I need.

2 FPS was finally achieved when ASIAIR introduced Bin2, since the ASIAIR could not handle large sensors. Since it was Bin2, I compensated by using 250mm to 275mm guide scopes, otherwsie the superpixels are too large to get a good centroid estimate.

Chen

w7ay

Byrdsfan1948 I am getting close to junking my current mount.

Before doing that, have you tried INDIGO or N.I.N.A.? I suspect your mount is not the problem, but the lack of user control over auto-guiding in ASIAIR is the root of the problem (or worse, perhaps even caused by buggy ASIAIR not being able to send proper guide pulses to your mount -- you read in the forum lots of compaints about the declination axis not being guidable on some mounts).

If you are not a raw beginner, or someone who refuses to read or follow any manual, some real control software may suit you better than ASIAIR. If you don't want to leave a laptop outdoors in the cold, you can use INDIGO Sky on a Raspberry Pi 4 as the INDIGO server, with your desktop computer indoors; to INDIGO, the Raspberry Pi and the desktop computer are just elements on the INDIGO bus -- so it is just like your desktop were outdoors in the cold. You can grab camera images on the desktop as well as you can grab images in the Raspberry Pi.

BTW, I am in the n-th redesign of a GUI that sits on top of INDIGO on macos for my own use. As someone who is used to Apple's UX, I know it is possible to get both simple and yet advanced control over a device :-). I started a few years ago, and had put it aside. Then started in earnest a year ago, and got sidetracked by clear skies. But now that there won't be clear skies until Spring (at least when it is not freezing outside), I am back to investigating it again :-).

Chen

Byrdsfan1948

w7ay Hey Chen, Well as you may recall basically I'm new to this hobby the last couple of years.

Full disclosure. !!! I must admit I tried to skip high school, then undergrad school, and by means of the ASIAIR I tried going straight to grad school. So I never took INDIGO, N.I.N.A. 101 or any of the other normally required astrophotography classes :-)))) .........

OK, so I'm not a complete novice, nor an idiot, but still I do have a lot to learn. As an engineer I certainly have the skills to know how to logically work a problem, isolate variables, set up test experiments and of course maybe most importantly know how to ask: WHY???? Having said all that I must admit this damn ASIAIR has pushed me to my limits of patience.

Once you get into the workings inside that red box we are firmly on your turf, not mine!!!! . My suspicions as you suggest are that many of my problems are rooted there. But since virtually all of my issues are mount related and without question I have traced at least a few of them to the mount, I cannot believe that the only culprit is the ASIAIR.

Having said all that here was/is/maybe my plan........... After 20+ years my wife and I sold our beautiful home in Bortle 2 skies in Jackson Hole Wyoming a couple of months ago. One of my neighbors there had a 16 inch reflector permanently set up in his very professional observatory that I suspect would even impress you. Unfortunately he moved away 4 or 5 years ago before the idea of getting into this hobby hit me. I was still at the time hoping to become the country's oldest new rock star, so I had no time for such nonsense as this !! :-)) ............ However from what I could see at the time in his observatory, he did it all the pre ASIAIR way........... But those damn -30 below zero nights!!!!!! !!

So after we sold our home, sort of out your way, as I recall your out in Portland OR... BTW I nearly took a job there in the Portland area with HP years go. They had a huge plastic injection molding, and assembly operation there I was targeted for. Stone age by BIC's standards. Actually as automated as it was, it was still almost primitive. After seeing what they considered "automation", I was certain we were not a fit. I was able to pull off getting them to see our operation in Milford CT. The look on their faces made it clear they were to say the least "impressed"!!..............

Anyway I've digressed!!! Back to my was/is/maybe plan.

After selling our dream home in God's country Jackson Hole Wyoming we quickly purchased a beautiful brand new home in the Daytona Beach area of Florida BTW I was there at the Space Center last month for the launch of Artemis One!!!! HMMMMMMM "IMPRESSIVE"!!! As an ME with a specialty in Aerospace engineering I assure you I will be spending a lot of time at the Space Center this winter!!

Damn !!!! I've digressed again!!!

Anyway!!! In Florida cold weather is more a phenomenon than a regular experience like in Portland OR, Connecticut CT ( where I type this from) or Jackson Hole Wy. My thoughts were to put together a set up "sans" ( FR) the ASIAIR in my new winter home area, and there go back to grade school.............. My dream of rock star stardom has escaped me ( although many people I know in that line of work it has not !!! ) but who knows in this hobby ???? :-)))

Regards, Al

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