RayWUK

Does SkySafari connect to the mount via the ASIAIR or directly to the mount? What connection method do you use in the SkySafari app? (ASCOM, INDI, Other). RayW

Thanks Laurance, that's seems to have sorted out my connection problem. Just need a clear night now to see how it performs.

Ok, ive tried both of those suggestions but still can't connect to the mount from SkySafari. Can you go into a bit more detail, I'm using the AZ-GTI with a EQmod cable to an ASIAIR pro. I can control the mount from the ASIAIR app and the SW SynScan pro App.

Has anyone had any success connecting their AZ-GTI to SkySafari ? If so what settings in SkySafari did you use. I Have SkySafari Pro6.

As i understand it you turn on station mode on the AZ-GTI to get it to connect to your home wifi and if you leave the AZ-GTI Access Point Mode enabled as well you'll still be able to connect to it directly when away from home. RayW

Great picture Ray, and just shows what a difference another 2hrs 54mins makes on my 6min effort. I'm still a novice but would have thought StarTools would have reduced the gradient down the left side a bit more. The 'wipe' tool has done a really good job of cleaning up light pollution from my first two images. RayW

Thanks for that. I'm assuming (maybe incorrectly) from what you suggest is that the home position is the position of the mount when first switched on. That makes some sort of sense as i had to reboot every thing at one point and i think the mount wasn't pointing at the NCP and that may have been where things went haywire. I'll give it another try on the next clear night and follow your procedure. In fact i've just tried it indoors without the PA, just lining up roughly with a compass, and the mount is happy slewing back and forth to where SkySafari expects targets to be.

Finally got the AZ-GTI out for its first imaging session on Sunday night. Unfortunately things didn't go well. I upgraded the software for the ASI pro a few days ago and had all sorts of problems which i won't got into here (unless someone really wants to know), suffice to say an hour or so of clear sky was reduced to a few minutes of imaging. On the positive side given the stiffness in the RA i was getting guiding down to 1-1.5" on both axis. There were a few bumps to about 4" but there was quite gusty wind around so i'll see what its like on a calmer night before stripping. One problem i had occasionally was when using the GOTO from ASI pro the scope proceeded to point towards the ground. Never did get to the bottom of this so if anyone has seen this and knows the solution i'd be happy to know. Anyway, this is what i got: 3 subs of 120secs, the last of which had thin cloud creeping in. Still learning with APP and StarTools.

My first and so far only DSO image since buying a telescope for Christmas, gosh its been cloudy, FLO weren't kidding 'may contain clouds' Its only a screen shot as i haven't got a license as yet for APP/StarTools so can't save. I haven't much of a clue what i'm doing just following a load of youtube 'guides' so i'm quite pleased with the result so far. 52x120sec subs, WO RedCat51, canon 600D, Star Adventurer tracker.

Only one thing to say, WOW. Did you use any filters?

Well, i did get out. Just managed to do a PA before the clouds rolled back in. Oh well, another day night. Not completely wasted, i did find that there was a new software update for the ASIAIR (1.8.2.9.12).

Still waiting for a clear night to try out the AZ-GTI, there's a few stars out tonight but still more than 50% cloud cover. 😬 Will have another look later this evening.

Cable management can be a problem, they're usually too long. Having the ASIAIR pro mounted on the scope has helped a lot and i use the power out sockets to power everything. I've cut down the length of the Dew heater cables and bought short 0.5m USB cables for cameras and EAF. The only excessively long cable i've got now is the USB cable to the mount. Short ones with the required RJ12 mount connector seem hard to come by.

Thanks, the shiny red was unintentional, i bought a lot of the stuff secondhand apart from the RedCat, mount and Wedge. The Dovetail bar that mounts the AZ-GTI to the wedge is a 'Astro Essentials Dovetail Bar' from FLO. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/astro-essentials-dovetail-bars.html It's what they recommended but you'll need a 1/4" to 3/8" adaptor for the mount. The one they supplied wouldn't screw right in to the mount so i had to machine the small flange off it to get the bar sitting flush with the bottom of the mount. Alternatively open the slot out a touch to take a 3/8" bolt at the appropriate place.

Ordered some Lithium grease today but i think i'm going to delay the strip down a bit and give it a try as is. Hopefully if we get a break in the clouds i'll be able to do a quick session and see what the guiding is like. At least that'll give me an idea if striping down, tweaking and re-greasing later on has improved things. Heres a picture of my setup.

Thanks for all the advice, I feel striping down the AZ-GTI is well within my capabilities and don't really want to get involved in a lot of back and forth with Skywatcher which may or may not resolve anything. I'd rather be out imaging, so i'm going to have a go at sorting the issue. From what i've read it seems a common pastime for AZ-GTI owners pushing the limits with EQ mode that the unit was never intended. My imaging setup is a WO RedCat51, Canon 600D, ZWO mini guiding package and auto focuser and ASI Air Pro. All up weight 3.5kgs On another question as a new SGL member, how do you get info at the bottom of your posts?

Its quite stiff and has one spot of about 30 degrees rotation where it gets even tighter with the clutch completely unscrewed. I have 2 1kg counterweights and i doubt even that's enough for my optical setup.

🙁 After mounting the dovetail on the AZ-GTI it was apparent how stiff the AZ (RA) axis is and impossible to balance. After searching these pages and a few youtube channels it seems a common problem. Question is, as it doesn't seem to have any problem slewing would Skywatcher consider it faulty? I think a partial strip down beckons. Any advice before I start appreciated. Ray.

A question for all you EQ Mode users. Just about to mount my newly acquired AZ-GTI on my WO wedge and then realised that what would become the RA axis (Az) is at 90degrees to my Star adventurer RA axis. So Altitude of Star Adventurer is currently set to 52 Degrees on the wedge so when i mount the AZ-GTI i presume i need to reduce this 38 degrees (90-52) before trying a PA. Or am i seeing this all wrong? Ray.

Tried out the cheap EQMOD cable this afternoon, i was a bit apprehensive about this as i'd heard a few problems with these. At the time of ordering the more expensive Lynx Astro cable was OOS. First few attempts to connect to my ASI Air Pro failed as I tried to connect with what i thought was the obvious 'Skywatcher AZ wedge or Skywatcher AZ Synscan' options from the drop down list. After a bit of head scratching i recall seeing a EQMOD option further up the menu, upon trying this the mount connected straight away, Doh. The mount controls now appear in the ASI AIR screens and I'm able to move the mount around with these. Another step up the learning curve. Not sure what else i can do now until i get some clear sky, perform a PA and checkout the GOTO functions. Question. Guiding with my Star Adventurer was done via a ST4 cable between the guide camera (ZWO ASI Mini) and the mount. I'm presuming that guiding will now be done via the EQMOD cable between the ASI Air pro and the mount ? Ray.

Well after a delayed delivery (should have been last Friday) my AZ-GTI finally arrived this afternoon. Just did a quick check to make sure it worked in AZ mode before updating the firmware over wifi to EQ mode. All went well with no problems. Forgot i needed a dovetail to mount on my wedge so another order fired off to FLO. Next job to check my cheap (Amazon) EQMOD cable works to connect to ASI PRO.

All was not lost, i've not much idea what I'm doing, its a very steep learning curve, but after loading my 50X120sec images into AAP and preprocessing with the 'automatic' defaults and a crop this is what i got. (Screen shot) Really pleased, my first Astro image. 😀

It's on a Star Adventurer so the target has to be centred manually. Don't really understand why the image is centred on the tablet screen and not in the actual images. In hindsight i guess i should have had a look at the live view on the camera.

Just a follow on from previous post, here's a photo showing tablet screen during session and raw image as it appears in APP. The only thing that comes to mind is that the image of Andromeda looks a bit bigger on the tablet than in APP so I'm wondering if i inadvertently zoomed and shifted the image somehow before centring it.

Hi, i'm a complete novice in Astrophotography and managed for the first time last night to get out with all my newly acquired equipment and shoot some photos. Namely of the Andromeda Galaxy. My setup is a Star Adventurer + RedCat51 +Canon 600D + ZWO guide scope package + ASI AIR PLUS. Polar align went well with the ASI AIR PA routine, i then roughly positioned the scope in the general direction of Andromeda and did plate solve. I had the coordinates for Andromeda from SkySafari but found Andromeda was a bit off centre when i got near (bottom right of the screen) After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing i managed to get Andromeda centred in the middle of my tablet screen, started guiding and knocked off 50x120sec exposures. All looked good during the session with each shoot showing Andromeda centred in the screen. So, today I've just loaded up the images into AstroPixelProcessor and found all the images are offset to the top left side of the screen. Can't think of what has caused this so any suggestions please. Ray.