Getting the best performance from my AM5: Page 22

Getting the best performance from my AM5

ASIMount@ZWO

Jan75 The minimun move value has already changed and default in the beta version. We dindin't ask you to change it, just tell you what we changed. It's a test and we should confirm the change is useful since we didn't recur the oscillation. Thank you for your try about the beta version.

Jan75

ASIMount@ZWO Thank you for the explanation. I was talking about the guide rate (that I was asked to change to 0.25x), not about the min_move (that I know cannot be changed in Asiair). The guide rate is an option in Asiair for other mounts but not on AM5 (disabled in the current version from what I understand from other posts).

In all cases, on my side, the 2.9s-period oscillation is still present even with the beta so maybe that has nothing to do with the SW parameters you changed - just guessing. Anyways, I sent you the most recent guiding logs as requested, let me know if you need anything else from me, otherwise I will just wait for your response by email.

ASIMount@ZWO

CHriss Sorry about the trouble you meet. I'll ask our support to check your email and reply you.

CHriss

ASIMount@ZWO
Thanks
The ticket was raised using a different e-mail address than the one I'm registered with here.
I don't see an option to reply directly to you. Please send me a mail to the registered e-mail, I then can reply with the e-mail adress used for the ticket.

ASIMount@ZWO

CHriss Could you show me your email's name, so our support can find your email quickly.
Thank you.

CHriss

ASIMount@ZWO
Sure, but I'd like to avoid posting that e-mail address here.
This is the body of the e-mail I got as auto-response after opening my ticket. Does that help?

Your request (9711) has been received and is being reviewed by our support staff.

To add additional comments, reply to this email.
This email is a service from ZWO. Delivered by Zendesk
[4XJGXP-NXG44]

ASIMount@ZWO

CHriss OK , thank you, I'll deliver your information to our support account.

ASIMount@ZWO

CHriss Hi, we replied your email two days later. Did you recieve it? Or maybe you can check your junk mails.

CHriss

ASIMount@ZWO
Thanks for checking but no, I never got a response. Only the auto-reply after opening the ticket.
Since I'm running my own mail-domain and mail-server, it is very easy to check the logs.

I've replied to the auto-response, maybe that helps.

CHriss

ASIMount@ZWO
I didn't get any response so far, neither by e-mail nor here :-(

ASIMount@ZWO

Jan75 The guide rate is an option in Asiair for other mounts but not on AM5

The option is on our plan. We'll release this option later.

Kevin_A

Just adding my 2 cents worth, the new beta version released to help fix inconsistant guiding did not change anything in regards to performance, if anything my mount is running worse.

ASIMount@ZWO

CHriss Sorry for that. Our support will send you an email again later.

fotosgrafiabymiguel

@w7ay - Thank you Chen for your well-written description "getting the best performance on the AM5" I used your suggestions and got the best guiding on my AM5, AA+, RedCat 51, ASI 2600MC Pro and ASI220mm Guidescope.

Do you have any guiding suggestions for AM5, AA+, Celestron EdgeHD 8, OAG w/ASI174mm and ASI533MC Pro?

Thank you in advance.

fotosgrafiabymiguel

@w7ay StarzLite Thank you Chen for your well-written description "getting the best performance on the AM5" I used your suggestions and got the best guiding on my AM5, AA+, RedCat 51, ASI 2600MC Pro and ASI220mm Guidescope.

Do you have any guiding suggestions for AM5, AA+, Celestron EdgeHD 8, OAG w/ASI174mm and ASI533MC Pro?

Thank you in advance.

w7ay

fotosgrafiabymiguel Do you have any guiding suggestions for AM5, AA+, Celestron EdgeHD 8, OAG w/ASI174mm and ASI533MC Pro?

Sorry, I do not use the ZWO mount to know how it works with an OAG, especially with an ASIAIR (assuming that is what you mean by "AA+").

To get good guiding (0.35" total RMS with an RST-135E), you need the camera to have the ablility to set an extra 20 dB of gain after getting 12 stars. I am not sure an OAG can do that.

Chen

Jan75

w7ay My own observation is that OAG makes guiding performance worse, but at this point I don't know why that is. I suspect it is the number of stars detected: the Asiair interface displays some stars with circles around them, so I'm assuming these are the ones used for guiding. So far I have never seen more than a handful circles (let's say 5-ish at best). I use the ASI ZWO 220 camera with the gain at 450. The telescope is an RC8 (at 1627 mm FL). I have seen small improvement when attaching a counter-weight.
Next time I have a clear night I will try the same setup with a guidescope and confirm that the key problem is with the number of stars used for guiding.

w7ay

Jan75 My own observation is that OAG makes guiding performance worse, but at this point I don't know why that is.

With a strain wave mount, I suspect that it is because

you need guide exposures of 0.5 sec or shorter
this means that you will need multi-star guiding
in turn, this means the need for a good star field with all the stars in the field being as sharp as possible (this is where an OAG falls apart). If one star has coma and the other star does not, or another star has "wings", as the weights of their centroid changes over time due to scintillation, the weighted sum will also change.

Even before strain wave gear mounts, I have tried various OAG over the past 15 or so years, and have always gone back to using a separate guide scope.

Chen

Jan75

w7ay This might be the key to the entire problem of bad guiding performance. Can't wait to re-run all tests with a guidescope. I used to use it before I bought the OAG but I also had the ASI ZWO 120MM camera that is not as sensitive as the 220 so pairing the 220 with the guidescope will be a new experiment. Now that I use a counterweight I am no longer that worried about the weight (or torque) of the main telescope + guidescope group. Just wondering if a 246mm guidescope is a good match for a 1627mm main scope... Will see!

w7ay

Jan75 Can't wait to re-run all tests with a guidescope.

With an RC8 type focal length, you will need to make sure there is no differential flexture, though :-).

That being said, I have been able to get consistent 0.35" type total RMS guiding with ASIAIR, albeit with a different manufacturer's strain wave gear mount, with just a 250mm focal length guide scope with flattener and ASI178MM guide camera (large, clean FOV).

That type of error should work well enough for the RC8. I have started to tune the autoguiding to prepare for when a Mewlon 180 arrives later in the year, although most of the time, it will be used unquided (planetary).

Your 246mm should do fine.

Good luck.

Chen

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