Search the Community

Hi all This will hopefully be the new thread for all things regarding the skywatcher Az Gti mount. Please share anything you think is relevant or ask any questions regarding this stunning and very capable mount. I'm hoping that this will become the central hub for this mount and the place to come to for advice, help, information and knowledge for the Az Gti. Share your images of your mount and set up along with images captured or experiences observing with it. I've owned mine since May this year and use it with my sw 72ed ds pro, asi air pro, zwo asi294mc pro (used to use a canon 600d) in EQ mode. Even though its mot meant for astrophotography it sure can pull out some brilliant performances. I live in a 1st floor flat and portability is key for me and the goto functionality is a godsend to setup quickly. So feel free to ask anything and other az gti owners can help and advise.

Hi, first post so please bear with me, having issues with autoguiding, looked at numerous forum threads and cannot find the issue specific to my setup and the issue I am having. Equipment in question: ZWO 224 using as guide camera plugged into raspberry pi running Astroberry via USB3, Lynx Astro EQDIR cable plugged from USB on raspberry pi into hand controller port on AZ GTI. Configuration: Synscan android app successfully connected to AZ GTI via wifi and can control via mobile phone, AZ GTI setup to connect to raspberry pi (so it's on the raspberry pi network) AZ GTI connected successfully as it is recognised in PHD2 and EKOS, In PHD2 the mount is setup as INDI mount (AZ-GTI) and connects. Issue: PHD2 is unable to guide in either RA or declination (see screenshot error showing up), it is always one or the other. I have tried setting up multiple times, tried using the network cable which came with the camera directly from the camera into the hand controller port and setup in PHD2 as "on camera" (I suspect this setup is wrong anyway and was one of the first I tried). Polar alignment has been checked multiple times, the end result is always the same, the star field within PHD2 window will always drift in one direction so any star chosen will eventually disappear out the field of view as the mount isn't moving to follow it. Looking at the PHD2 graph I know it is trying to send pulses to the mount but either the movement is too much for the mount to move or something isn't happening as it should, in the example screenshot provided I tried this indoors on a fairly fast (compared to in the field) rotating star field looking at a screen so it will fail, though the mount didn't adjust at all, no matter how I've setup prior the AZ GTI refuses to adjust to follow a guide star. I have tried manually moving the mount in PHD2 and it doesn't seem to move in any direction, manually moving however does work in EKOS so the hardware seems to be plugged in correctly. EKOS even knows where the mount is pointing and can issue go-tos (although it is slightly off target at the moment). I am kind of at my wits end to why autoguiding isn't working, if anyone can help please assist. On another note if someone can advise how to configure PHD2 so the off yellow warning box colour can be changed so the error message can be read clearly - I know theres a line of code I can use in the terminal window which refers to a resource file to change to the default PHD2 colours and launches the software but the changes are never saved.

M31 & IC1396. Because its still chuffing cloudy, I'm continuing the reprocessing train using Star tools, topaz denoise and photoshop. Taken using sw 72ed AzGti Canon 600D in EQ mode, asiair pro. Hopefully the cloud gods are having Xmas off soon. Dispite my little mount not being recommended for astrophotography is sure does give a good account of itself and not the baffoon behind the lens.

Hi Guys, So I am losing my mind with this Mount. I am having the same issues. For the life of me I can’t work it out. Here is a pic of how my scope is mounted. Would really appreciate some help as I am increasingly frustrated with this purchase. Thank you.

Hi I'd like to make my own FTDI EQDIR USB Adapter for my new(to me) AZ GTi mount... Does anyone know what the pinouts for the rj12 connector are? The 8-pin RJ45 connections are well documented, but I can't find a 6-pin RJ12 wiring diagram... Lynx astro do make one, so I know it is possible ? Thanks Ady

For the life of me, I cannot figure this out. Got to take out my setup last night for only the second time as it's been cloudy for weeks and I've been trying in vain to align my Skywatcher AZ-GTi mount to no avail. I'm using it in ALT-AZ mode for now, and I've probably researched every article and watched every Youtube vid I could find and still nothing is working...I feel like I'm stupidly dense or something because there is something just not clicking in the cranium. I thought I was supposed to point the dang thing north to start so that's what I did, err, I think anyway. Am I pointing the wrong end north? See picture. Also, I'm reading that the actual scope has to be mounted a certain way on the mount correct? Which way would that be? I've read all of this left/right stuff and those directionals mean nothing to me as it depends on someone's viewpoint. When I aimed north to start, I attempted to align by directing SynScan to go to the Moon first, and that took it so far off course it wasn't even close, it was basically pointing at the ground. I reset and tried again with another start (Vega I believe)...again, wasn't even in the realm of close. I made sure my location settings were correct in the app so that wasn't the issue. Here's how I got something to "work". I had it track to the moon and when it was essentially pointing at the ground and who knows how many degrees from my actual target, I picked the whole thing up, turned it around, manually aligned to the moon and then clicked OK on the app. I felt like a ridiculous clown doing that but somehow it actually managed to do the trick but something tells me that isn't right on a long term basis. I'm thinking about getting SkySafari to control the mount but I should probably master the basics first. Tips/tricks appreciated.

Had three sessions last night, the first the CPRE Orion star count with my 11 year old daughter, magic. The second was from the light-blighted garden mid evening - successfully picked up M41, M35 and M67 all for the first time - then a neighbour put on more lights so had a go at Polaris, nearly, almost sort of resolved as a double this time. After a tea and warm break I managed to convince myself that the Mak 127 carry over to the park at 11:30 pm constituted allowable lockdown exercise (body AND mind officer...) so headed out to a wider and, it turned out, reasonably darker viewing spot in the park. I haven't yet much comparative experience of conditions but I would say seeing was quite steady while transparency a bit milky. Winchester sits in a river valley and I suspect this may be a local feature until I can get up & out of town. Anyhoo, what started as proof-of-concept of some grab & go bag & padding ideas, turned into a really super session of clusters and doubles, most of which I had never seen before, & fruitless searches for fainter things. Technique-wise I brightest star aligned on Sirius and Arcturus & did have a few accuracy niggles with the GoTo , however a combination of the Telrad + 10x50 Bino sweeps got most of the bright targets quickly in the Finderscope and centred. Highlight has to be the Beehive, M44 which I found breathtaking & can't believe I have never looked for before, Beta Mono triple-star which was amazingly 3D and set me off on a Tatooine sunset imagination-trip and M67, dim & red the kind of place where Klingons might hang out! After much reading on here over all these starless nights I had made a list and although I deviated a bit from it and failed to find ANY galaxies or planetary nebula, the list was a great idea and reminded me that I wanted to go and hunt down the targets in Cancer which I would otherwise have forgotten and missed two of the highlights of the evening. Eventually my phone battery gave out and as I was wi-fi tethered to the AZ GTi this ended my session shortly before frost-bite ensued. That dew shield was a good buy For what its worth, here are my notes, all observations made on SW Mak 127 on AZ GTi, Baader Hyeprion 24mm 68 degree fixed for most & occasional higher mag on Baader Hyperion 8-24mm Zoom. Telrad & SW 9x50 finder, supplemented by Celestron Nature DX ED 10x50 Bins.

Finally had a clear night which coincided with not being too tired, not busy, plus my better half was out for much of the evening. Even the toddler went to bed with no problems. I wanted to try out two things mainly. The first was a Synscan handset I acquired from Astroboot, and the second, also an Astroboot purchase as a present for the children was a Heritage 130P. This was without the base and ideal to go on either the Giro-WR or AZGTi. Being on a tripod makes it easy to get the eyepiece at a sensible height for the children. Tonight though, no short people around, I just got the chance to play myself. I setup in the back garden, eyeballed a level for the tripod then powered up. I now use the Tracer battery rather than the internal AAs and the mount now seems to slew with a little more purpose, lasts a lot longer obviously. Alignment was trivial. Power on, set the time, two star align choosing Vega to manually slew to first, centred in the 24mm eyepiece, then chose Polaris as the second star. It got close but not in the fov so I centred it again, alignment succesful. Note that I did not bother going to higher power for more accuracy, but I still found that most objects were within the field of view on gotos. A couple were just outside but easily found. I find the AZGTi very impressive, simple to use, compact but very effective. The Freedom find clearly works too as the alignment remained accurate even after moving the scope manually a few times. When I first used the mount a while ago it had backlash in az, and during the first use developed quite severe movement in alt. I was a bit disappointed and hoped I would not have to return it. I got instructions from Skywatcher via FLO and sometime later found the time to try them out. After removing the cover it was very clear how to adjust the two worm gears. They were both loose, explaining why I was getting movement. After a bit of experimenting I found a good compromise in adjustment and the mount now performs as I would expect. I acquired the handset largely because the mount will not work with SkySafari on an iPhone (well it will but you need two devices, one for the Synscan app and one for SkySafari, too cumbersome for me). The handset worked well. I actually find it easier to use when centring objects because you can feel where the buttons are without having to look up. The database is bigger in the handset, particularly for SAO doubles which is something I found lacking in the app. If they ever do manage to fix the mount so it works properly with SS I believe I can still have the handset connected to have the best of both worlds. The Heritage was not supplied with a Finder which I found a little annoying, I guess I didn't read the description fully, but the SkySurfer V fits to the mounting point without too much trouble so this problem was overcome. I tried a few targets first just to get the hang of things, Double Cluster which looked surprisingly good in the 24mm Panoptic, M57 was a tiny bloated star in the 24mm but at higher power showed its ring shape nicely. A brief comment about the Heritage focuser at this point. I actually find it better than I expected. Yes, there is some slop which is a little annoying but it was quite possible to achieve a good focus by gentle adjustment. My eyepieces these days are a set of BGOs plus a 3 to 6 Nag zoom and 24mm Panoptic. The BGOs focus much further in, so what I learned to do was find the focus point for the BGOs and then leave the focuser there. When swapping back to the Pan or Nag, I simply pulled them back out so they were in focus and then tightened the locking screws, followed by a little tweak to focus. This saved the frustration of winding in and out constantly. I will try the plumbers tape mod to improve the slop as I think this will really help. I keep wondering if there is a possible mod to put a decent focuser on the scope but actually it would be a shame to lose the simplicity and lightweight of this scope. Next stop the Double Double. Whilst this split just about (if you squinted a bit and used your imagination), it showed the collimation needed a tweak. Back to Vega and defocused star test showed it was a little off. Not disastrous but worthwhile tweaking. This proved very simple too, loosen the locking screws, then adjust, recentreing after each tweak to check. The beauty of such a small scope is that you can be looking in the eyepiece whilst adjusting, it took me a couple of minutes to get it looking good. Refocusing and immediately Vega looked much better. Back to the DD and it was much improved, a clearer split with the Nag at x130. Compared with the Tak, which gives beautiful bullseye stars it was still a little messy, flaring a little and nowhere near as clean or aesthetically beautiful, but the splits were there. What can you expect for such an entry level scope, good stuff. I had expected much worse diffraction effects from the single stalk secondary mount but the reality was it was a lot less noticeable than some scopes I've used with 4 vane spiders. They were 10, 12" and 16" scopes so the additional aperture and brightness will have caused the larger spikes but either way, the Heritage was very good in this respect. The sky appeared very clear and stable, best I've seen it for a while although the dew was quite heavy. At one point the secondary dewed up so I had to use a hair dryer to clear it. I think a lightweight shroud is needed to prevent dew and also to cut down glare from the open Truss design. So, other targets? Back to the Double Cluster to enjoy the improved collimation. Lovely star colours showing through. NGC457, an old favourite looking amusing as always M27 was faintly visible without filter, but I added a Baader OIII filter and that brought it out much more. Not much detail but not bad. The Blue Snowball was tiny in the 24mm, better at higher power but no sign of blueness. Darker sky and better dark adaptation needed I think. M31, normal fuzzy oval but M32 picked out well. No sign of 110, skies too bright. M45 was really nice. Could do with a slightly wider fov (not possible in this scope) but it fitted in and Alcyone with its three companions look lovely. The collimation was looking great and the star shapes surprisingly good. Alberio, lovely star colours in the 24mm Mizar, another old favourite, always delivers Polaris I was quite surprised with, the primary was nicely controlled and the little pinpoint secondary showed very clearly. Nice Somewhat optimistically I typed NGC6992 into the handset, with the OIII in the 24mm. To my surprise I could see the arc of the Eastern Veil quite clearly. Not much detail visible under local LP but I reckon a dark site would be quite rewarding. Panning across to 52 Cygni I could again see the Western Veil as it passes by the star. Impressive to see this from home with such small aperture. I'll get this scope under a dark sky soon to try it out further. Uranus was my last success of the night, clearly non stellar but presenting only a tiny white disk even at x162. No sign of colour, I suspect the frac would bring out more colour but would need to try as I can't remember. I've certainly seen it as a greyish green before but can't recall which scope that was in. Neptune was a possible but not sure as my phone died and I could not match the star fields to be certain. I also tried for Caroline's Rose without success. It should have been in the eyepiece but nothing there, I do find this quite a subtle target with the LP round here, more aperture required most likely. M81 and M82 were poorly positioned in my 'Heathrow Glow' direction so I could not see them either. So, a very good little session with this mount and scope combo. Next time I will pop the Tak on although the AZGTi does enjoy the lighter weight of the Heritage I think. For nebulae I suspect the additional aperture will be worthwhile too. A long old report in the end, apologies, just nice to have something to talk about even though the objects seen are hardly exotic! Pleased with the little 130P, very good value and performance and a great match for the AZGTi