HEQ5 guiding problems

redsky

Hi can anyone help?

I'm trying to use the ASiAIR to guide with a Skywatcher HEQ5 but not getting anywhere.

I have a 750mm reflector with a DSLR which is not connected to the ASIAIr, I have a 240mm guide scope with a ZWO 120mm mini camera.

The guide camera is connected via it's USB cable to the ASIAir and works fine. I am using a Levono tablet running the latest ASIAir software.

I have connected the Skywatcher HEQ5 synscan pro to the ASIAir using the supplied USB to serial cable connected to the unit's Serial to handset cable and the ASIair recognises it and connects ok. I haven't connected the ST4 cable to the mount (although did previously try this without success).

This setup works well with a PC using ASCOM and PHD and I can guide with no problem. However this is not the case with the ASIair.

The ASIair finds a guides star, calibrates and says it's guiding however the mount then starts to slew for a short time and looses it's guide star. i also get a message at the top of the screen saying "device disconnected" although it doesn't say which device and the guide camera appears to be working ok.

Any ideas?

tekytek

Hi Redsky,

I have a similar problem with a HEQ5 and the same ZWO 120mm mini guide camera.

Although during calibration the mount will slew and lose track of the star, saying “star lost” and never find it again.

Oddly during the day if I point the guide scope into a mass of trees it can find a small gap of light and track, calibrate and guide the small patch of light without issue.

In the recent update 1.09 I see that there has been a change to the guiding but the logs don’t fully describe the change.

Hopefully someone will reply with some clear instructions on how to setup guiding.

redsky

Some more information, the synscan software is version 03.39.03. I viewed a picture taken during the "guiding" and the mount was moving in a zig zag pattern, down then along, over and over again. It's clearly software as this doesn't happen using a PC.

It's really frustrating as I brought the camera and ASIAir together just so I could guide without using a PC.. I have now had to learn how to use a PC to guide to check it wasn't a problem.. which actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would as there's plenty of support out there, quite unlike the ASIAir which is very poorly documented (the manual is not at all helpful) and this forum is meant to resolve issues... not so far. It could easily be me doing something wrong here, but equally may just be buggy software...

It would be useful if someone from ZWO could reply:-)

tekytek

I was sold the camera ASIAIR and scope as a very expensive kit from my local dealer and I really don’t think they understand how undocumented this is.

It will do the zig zag a little during calibration, but then should have enough data to keep it on track guiding.

I have had success in getting some answers by emailing, which I may do for this unless I can get it to work in the next few clear nights.

As I said it will work tracking a spot of light in the middle of a dark shaded tree during daylight hours, so I can’t see why it won’t at night on a bright star.

I have the v5 controller but not sure of the firmware version, Ill check when I connect it tonight... I’m in the Southern Sky.

PMTeam@ZWO

Hello Redsky and TekyTek,

Sorry about the guiding issues you were facing.

The guiding settings just like in PHD on PC. So, let's begin:

1) Connect devices

As you did - before you connect the Mount, please do 3 stars alignment and

#make sure#

- the firmware is above 03.39.04 and 04.39.04 - so please update the firmware to the latest - https://www.nexstarsite.com/;

- tap button to sync the location info and date to mount if the mount's location info are not right;

- turn on the #Tracking# in Telescope Settings;

2) Do focus

In Focus interface - enter the interface by tap the right-top position and choose Focus;

You can do focus by tap the ZOOM icon which is on the left-top and enter the Focus Aid tool interface, the HFD, brightness and Max graphs will help with focusing;

3) Choose a target

Let's choose a visible object ,

Tap--find a target you wanna to image-tap twice on the list row,

then do GoTo, after finished, back to Preview interface and do capture, waiting for the image be downloaded and take a look if there are enough stars on it - at least 20 stars. You can increase the EXP time and main camera gain to get more stars images.

4) Plate Solve and sync location to mount

Let's do plate solve and sync the RA/DEC to mount, tap the plate solve icon and wait for the result, then tap on button. Normally we need to do three times or more to make the target center.

5) Set Guide Params

Tap on the, set the

to 2000ms

to 1500ms or 2000ms

Then tap the Guide icon, the float window will show and tap on it to enter the guiding interface.

Tap the Graph icon, make sure the DEC mode is set to Auto or South.

5) Start Guiding

Ok, set the EXP time to 2 seconds, then tap the loop icon on the right-top to begin, when you get the image and find a bright star and tap on it to select it, then tap the calibrate icon - to start calibrating, after one or two mins, you will get the result. If success, the graph will draw the guiding process.

6) If the RMS is not so good - below 2', please try to adjust the RA Aggr and DEC Aggr then tap the Clear button on the graph and take a look the values.

Hope this help.

jovax

Dear ZWO team

I try everything to guide with asiair, I have a cpc 8 edgeHD + wedge, using PHD 2 on my PC guide is good, using asiair with the same configuration, is a nightmare, I can get 0,60 total on PC on asiair guiding is always more them 2,80 total, my guide camera and guide scope is zwo product, asi120mm mini and the new finder scope 30x120mm, pls fix the problems using phd on asiair on celestron cpc 8 edgeHD + wedge,. I'm using now PC for guiding and asiair just to take the photos, pls fix this problem, I buy asiair to stop using the PC. PS: I can send my PHD 2 PC configuration I use for my Celestron CPC 8 edgeHD and photos if helps

Tech@ZWO

Polar alignment（PA）is necessary before guiding.

Tech@ZWO

Polar alignment(PA)is necessary before guiding.

And ASIAIR supports PA in V_1.2,the test version is released.You can download by the following links:

Android：https://www.pgyer.com/ASIAIR

IOS：https://testflight.apple.com/join/6uEyoSl3

jovax

Hi Asiair team

I do polar aliment, on PHD2 on PC I guide perfect! with asiair never and I try everything,..... :(. I will try the new update to see if there's any improve, and I don't see any Polar aliment on this beta app,

Celestron cpc 8 edgeHD +Wedge

Asi120mini

Asi071mc

30x120 zwo guide scope

Celestron motor focuser

w7ay

Dear jovax,

The Polar Alignment is available in the current 1.2 Beta (at least for iOS TestFlight).

If you are not comfortable Beta testing (potentially lots of bugs), I would recommend waiting for the real v1.2 release. Or use two tablets and two SD cards, so you can still switch back to v1.1).

Select the Main Camera (home screen), which used to have Focus, Preview, Autorun menu items. A PA item has been added to the top of the menu.

While my current RainbowAstro RST-135 mount is not completely supported by ASIAIR yet, I have been able to do a quick polar align with ASIAIR and ran guiding to better than 0.7 RMS arc seconds by using ST-4 for guide pulses (200mm focal length, ASI290MM mini).

The peak tracking error for the mount is +/-20 arc seconds, albeit with periods of over 400 seconds -- but it shows that ASIAIR guiding is working for me, otherwise I would have gotten RMS errors of around 14 arc seconds!

I used a guide speed of 0.5x sidereal. It is probably not a good idea to use a faster guide speed than 1x. If there are wild swings in the guiding, please check the guide speed.

Regards,

- chen

jovax

Dear Chen

Thks for the support, yes. I have a backup os SD card

I just try the Beta app, and the PA is only possible if you can see the polar star, I'm in North but only possible to face south and I do polar aliment using another stars, close to the meridian

About the guiding I will try using with the ST-4 , I just using my asi120mm usb direct to asiair like I do with phd2 on PC, maybe is the problem,

PS:.bug - on last update 1,1, the preview became very slow, ex: on a 1 sec expose takes about 5 sec to get the preview and same times more, in the pass was very fast,

And the image histogram is very slow

Regards Jovax

Tech@ZWO

Hi Jovax:

The polar star is not necessary and you can verify this by some other ways to do the PA and contrast the accuracy of result.

We have tested PA on HEQ5_Pro,the guiding is much perfect than before.

Additional:

The "slowly preview“ was fixed in 1.2 test version

jovax

I try PA with asiair, and receive a notification ( I was more 30% away from NCP), the mount was 2 star align and polar align to face South, and was face to the meridian and close to the celestial equator,

For me dint work!..

Regards Jovax

w7ay

Dear jovax,

If you were really pointed close to the celestial equator, you are about 90 degrees away from both poles, irrespective of the hour angle (meridian or not)! The notification that you received from the app is correct.

ZWO's specs asks for no more than 30 degrees from a pole.

- chen

jovax

Hi Chen

OK, I will test again and I get back to you

Thks

Regards Jovax

w7ay

Dear jovax,

I don't know what algorithm ZWO uses (I am just a customer in the USA), but from the fact that they have not yet allowed anything further than 30 degrees from the pole may point to the fact that the accuracy might depend on the secant of the angle to the nearest pole.

Because of that, I would recommend that you get as close as you can to the pole as possible, even if they allow you to be off by 30 degrees. You just need an unobstructed FOV at the initial step and again after it has done the rotation. I think the FOV can even be completely obstructed in between those two ends, by tree branches, etc.

Perhaps Messrs. Ji and Jiang will be allowed to give us more detail.

For "blind" setup in an unfamiliar setting, I recommend starting with Polar Scope Align Pro (PS Align Pro) in iOS in its "Daytime/No Polarscope Alignment" mode to get you within a few degrees of the pole using the simple magetometer on iPads and iPhones.

- chen

jovax

I just update yesterday for last firmware and now I'm guiding much better! The PA is not working for me, always I try close to the south pole I get the same replay ( need to be 30% from the NCP). There's any way to do PA facing south? Im in North hemisphere but only possible to facing south hemisphere and I try already close to the meridian and low as 10%,20%,30% 40% etc and simple don't work. Or asiair PA don't work facing south only facing norte NCP?

Regards John

w7ay

Hi John,

I assume that although you are in the northern hemisphere, that you prefer to use the southern stars for polar alignment?

I am too far north to try using southern stars, but you need to make sure that an unobstructed FOV is available both at the start and at the end of the 60 degree slew. It does not matter if the FOV is obstructed in between those two ends.

You may have to start not at the meridian, but tilted 30 degrees to one side, so that the the end of the 60 degree slew, you are approximately 30 degrees on the other side of the meridian.

The other thing to try (and I have tried this) is to initially disconnect the telescope (select None in he Telescope Setup). When you start polar alignment, ASIAIR will ask if you wish to proceed without a mount -- confirm that you do.

ASIAIR will then ask you to manually slew by 60 degrees. You can use the mount's hand controller RA buttons.

The advantage vs the automatic way is that you can move the mount by other than 60 degrees. The ASIAIR is looking for the center of rotation of the plate. It does not really care that the rotation is by 60 degrees or by 30 degrees, although the former will yield more accurate results than the latter.

Again, you do not have to start with the OTA pointed at the meridian. Pick two endpoints where the FOV is unobstructed (a small obstruction like branches obstructing a few stars is not a problem -- most plate solving algorithms will resolve the center of the plate -- see astrometry.net).

I.e., if you cannot see the north with 60 degree rotation, try going manually and rotate by either more or less than 60 degrees. I would not recommend any angle less than 20 degrees, especially if the telescope does not provide a flat field.

If the ASIAIR algorithm is doing the right thing, it should depend on the plate to determine the star locations, and not the mount's RA and DEC -- this is why you can do PA without connecting the mount to the RA. As long as ASIAIR knows your latitude and the local sidereal time, it should be able to determine the altitude of the stars and apply the correct atmospheric refraction corrections; it should not have to depend on the mounts's RA and DEC.

So, try starting away from the meridian, and also try to use manual slewing with an angle that is different from 60 degrees. The key is that you need two FOV that are unobstructed. The two FOV also need to be within 30 degrees of the closest pole.

The success of the PoleMaster is partly because it depends on the human to do the plate solving (matching the template of the polar stars). Because of that, you are forced to find two unobstructed FOV visually. There is no visual clue from the ASIAIR PA process. Perhaps one day they can replace the pictures of telescopes and fireworks with an actual FOV of the camera's image (what SharpCap does).

Good luck,

Chen

w7ay

Hi John,

You also need to check with ZWO if the ASIAIR is using your latitude to select whether to use the northern stars or the southern stars while plate solving during polar alignment.

If it is using only a database of northern stars when you are in the northern hemisphere, it will be impossible to use the southern stars to polar align, even if you meet other parameters.

However, by using non-zero initial offsets from the meridian that I described, you might still be able to see enough northern stars to use the stars at the north.

If not, drift alignment using PHD2 may be your only option. There are some mounts that can correct for polar alignment error after performing multiple star alignments.

Good luck,

Chen

redsky

I just wanted to share with community that I have now found what the problem I had with guiding the HEQ5 was. Quite simply this came down to the mount driver. I have been selecting the Synscan driver which appears to work, but causes all of the problems I mentioned in the first post. For my mount the Synscan Beta driver was the correct choice. This has taken me so much time and effort to work out I hope I can save someone else the frustration, like many things it's obvious when you know.

Since I have been trying just about everything to get this to work and have seen other people struggling with connectionson this forum, I also thought it worth sharing how I have been able to connect my Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro to the ASIair. I connect to the handset using the USB - RS232 cable supplied with the ASIair and then connect this to an adaptor that converts the RS232 to the handset (the port in the middle next to the power input). There's probably other ways of doing this, but this works for me.

I hope this saves someone else the frustration I have experienced.