Help please with iOptron CEM25-EC and ASIair

[Adreneline]

Hi Everyone,

I used my new ASIair with my nearly new iOptron CEM25-EC for the first time last night and ran into a few issues - well one really.

Following a polar alignment and successful setting up of ASIair and connection to the mount and Sky Safari on the iPad I slewed to my first target star - Capella - to check things were basically working as expected (exactly as I would have done using iOptron Commander + ASCOM + CdC) but Capella was no where to be seen. After several more fruitless attempts and several rechecks of the PA I slewed to what I expected to be Dubhe and after a plate solve I instead found myself almost centred on IC2574 - in the right ball park but off the mark. I then chose to sync the mount with Sky Safari. After that subsequent slews to the Rosette and Sh2-240 were all spot on, tracking seemed excellent (no guiding) and I concluded a successful run of imaging following which I parked the mount only to discover the RA axis was about 10 - 15 degrees off the parked position. Not what I expected.

This morning I have discovered the time on the mount handset is still BST despite the fact that the iOptron manual implies the mount picks up its time signal from GPS. I also had DST set on the controller so I had assumed it would automatically switch to GMT at the appropriate time.

So last night I was imaging with GMT on the iPad and I presume ASIair, and BST on the mount. Would that account for the slew problems?

What should the DST setting be? 'Y' or 'N' - recognising it seems to have no affect on the time stored in the hand controller. I've read the iOptron manual several times and I can't seem to figure out what I should set - it's a bit ambiguous to my reading.

As a footnote - despite the problems - the ASIair is amazing and the iPad control app is a joy to use.

Thanks in anticipation of some help / guidance.

Adrian

 

[newbie alert]

To answer your first question, polar aligning is to align the mount with the point in the sky where earth rotates..so once you're on the target the mount will track , but the mount has no idea where on earth it is, so you star align or plate solve as in what you did..

Most mounts use the American format in terms of date ..not sure if ioptron do also..here's a idea..

[newbie alert]

As you can see it's month, date, year..

And take polar and star alignment as separate things