ASIAIR+ cannot guide with AM5 and ASI2600 Duo

jiji

Last week I purchased Zwo setup - AM5 mount, ASI2600 duo camera, EAF focuser, and ASIAIR Plus controller. The telescope is 420mm focal length Sharpstar f/2.8 HNT.

Using an Android cell phone with ASIAIR 2.1 app I managed to focus, test both cameras, and polar align the setup. Guiding so far has been a disaster - the application says it is guiding, but actually the stars in the guiding camera drift as if there is no guiding at all. This does not seem to be a hardware problem, as the application managed to do polar alignment - the mount moves fine, imaging works, plate solving works. Changing any settings does not help.

I tried few different versions of the Android app, with the following results:

v1.9.1 does not recognize any of the ASI2600 Duo camera
v2.0 recognizes the guiding camera, but not the main camera, and does not guide
v2.1 (firmware 10.74) recognizes both cameras, but does not guide
Beta 2.1.2_0202 app (with 10.99 ASIAIR+ firmware) - recognizes both cameras, has additional settings around guiding, but does not guide

Next days I am moving to NINA and PHD2. The idea of a portable setup controlled through a cell phone was appealing, but it already wasted couple of nights.

Has anyone resolved a similar issue?

Thanks

w7ay

jiji The idea of a portable setup controlled through a cell phone was appealing, but it already wasted couple of nights.

For what its worth, StellarMate now supports tablets (and also macOS):

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stellarmate/id1252626058
https://www.stellarmate.com/products/stellarmate-pro-128gb.html

Chen

Tech@ZWO

jiji Can you please reproduce the problem, and submit the log in the ASIAIR app?(About -> bug report) we need that for further analysis.

Old version ASIAIR app does not support the newest model camera, so need to use v2.1 or v2.1.2 version app.

jiji

Tech@ZWO I just sent several logs from guiding attempts with different settings from your Android Beta 2.1.2 build. The problem is that there is not even an attempt to guide, no attempt to move the mount during calibration either. The application does not report a mistake, says at the end "guiding" but the star field moves as if there is no guiding. If I select a guiding star manually - it floats up and disappears, but the application does not say "star lost" - it keeps saying "guiding". The movement slows down a bit when I turn on mount tracking, but guiding has no impact on anything. Nothing changes this behavior - I sent you logs with different aggression, gain, max pulse size, binning or no binning, etc.

Tech@ZWO

jiji If so, can you please take a video to show me your operation? which may be more helpful than the log, thanks.

jiji

Tech@ZWO unlikely to happen very soon, it will be raining here for a week

jiji

Tech@ZWO I recorded 2 videos today - one from the ASIAIR Android app - a bit fuzzy, but good enough to show you the problem with guiding. No matter what aggression and max duration settings I use - the result is the same - calibration does not seem to be doing anything, and the application tries to guide the mount without absolutely any visible effect. Turning tracking on or off does not improve the behavior. The weather got worse, so I could not record a better video.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HDKne7zc2ZC01NHy5LP5BIFs9Tnp6PVj/

The second video was done using NINA / Windows / ASCOM driver / PHD2 - here you can see similar problem, PHD2 never manages to calibrate as it seems the mount does not move.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q1YS7Nt9Q74OYmzbrOsmKS-XM2HOw0oL/

Does this give you an idea about a good next step?

At this point I am starting to think that the problem is with the AM5 mount, not with ASIAIR+.

jiji

Tech@ZWO Just to close this thread - I read the PHD2 logs and found that my latitude was placing me on the wrong side of the globe. The software was not unable to figure this out, and the result is above.

jiji

... or at least with something around its configuration. If slew works - guiding should work too, as the command path is the same, right? Shouldn't the 5-6 logs I sent you two weeks ago tell you something about this?

I am running out of ideas. I may try PHD guiding with ST-4 and my old Lodestar guiding camera.

Tech@ZWO

Got it, thank you for your updates.

Vega1869

one thing I found early on with the asiair, if you do not sync the mount or send the mount home after a polar alignment it will sometimes refuse to guide.
I've made a habit of sending the mount home after polar aligning and have not had the problem since.
other than the OTA. I have the same setup and even on a poor night I can guide with the l-extreme in the image train

w7ay

Vega1869 one thing I found early on with the asiair, if you do not sync the mount or send the mount home after a polar alignment it will sometimes refuse to guide.

If the 60º slew slews past the Meridian, the pier side is lost. That is why a Home operation works, since it resets the pier side for everybody (both the controlling software and the mount).

Otherwise, GOTOs won't work on a German mount (even after a plate solve, since the "new" pier side needs a Meridian Flip), and you also need to reverse the autoguide pulses.

Chen