Sky Watcher AZ GTi - New Firmware Available V3.31 is out

[powerlord]

there are folk with 1000 quid mounts that struggle to get under 1" rms. not bad at all.

when do we get to see the results ?

stu

[AstroNebulee]

4 hours ago, powerlord said:

there are folk with 1000 quid mounts that struggle to get under 1" rms. not bad at all.

when do we get to see the results ?

stu

Thank you again Stu. I'll settle for that guiding definitely,  I'm hoping to process it over the weekend, I have done a rough process on 2 hours worth just to see how good the dithering worked and looks good so far but needs more work so will process the full amount and post very soon. 👍

Edited August 27, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[AstroNebulee]

On 27/08/2021 at 08:07, powerlord said:

when do we get to see the results ?

Here is the finished article I hope. NGC 7000 North American nebula imaged from North Cornwall over 4 nights, 4 hours total exposure. 

During the full moon too. 

I'm happy with the image 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[Ags]

Lovely!

[AstroNebulee]

47 minutes ago, Ags said:

Lovely!

Thank you Ags, I've post it along with an M31 image I've taken over the past few nights, this little mount really pushing the astrophotography envelope. 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

On 29/08/2021 at 16:52, AstroNebulee said:

Here is the finished article I hope. NGC 7000 North American nebula imaged from North Cornwall over 4 nights, 4 hours total exposure. 

During the full moon too. 

I'm happy with the image 

 

 

Brilliant. It looks like we have a bona fide AZGTI imaging expert on the forums now. 😀👍

[AstroNebulee]

25 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Brilliant. It looks like we have a bona fide AZGTI imaging expert on the forums now. 😀👍

Pahahah oh shush, if you see my M31 image on the deep sky imaging section you'll see I'm not that much of an expert. It's what happens when you have 6 clear night's out of 7, go to work shattered and not able to leave kit out for long periods. But thank you very kind. 

[TerraC]

V3.33 is now available....  ppl on the AZGTI Fbook group reporting good results so far.  Tracking said to be smoother.   Will flash mine later and wait for the rains to subside (sigh)..  

 

[AstroNebulee]

3 hours ago, TerraC said:

V3.33 is now available....  ppl on the AZGTI Fbook group reporting good results so far.  Tracking said to be smoother.   Will flash mine later and wait for the rains to subside (sigh)..  

 

Thank you, be good to see if they did solve the declination axis runaway. I shall update my firmware soon, let's us know how you get on if the rains subside. Clear skies 

Edited September 9, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[GoldTop57]

From the release notes:

Version 3.33:
    1. Smoother tracking. 

[powerlord]

tried 3.33 last night.

guiding works!!

however unfortunately not fully tested. I was shooting around Deneb, and though it was in EAST, for reasons best known to itself ,goto went up and over, and started tracking with weights in west/camera on east slightly past vertical.

And I know from previous experience that it seemed to work guiding in west anyway.. so really needs another test.

My EQ6r-pro does the same - shooting IC1396 last night, and it went past vertical, weights out to west.

i.e. sort of already meridian flipped.

which is actually good in the sense that I'd far rather it not meridian flip if it has figured out it can 'reach' it starting westerly anyway. But asiair seems oblivous to this - as it kept telling me a meridian flip was XX minutes away.. and then of course gets to that point and no flip happens because it's not needed.

Summit weird there. I suppose it could be asiair in that both mounts are controlled by asiairs, but my understanding of the control is that what direction the mount 'gos to' is enterily up to it - asiair or any other controller just sort of says 'go to  X/Y'.

Im thinking that even though I always 'sync time' with mounts from asiar when I connect it's maybe a BST thing ?

anyhoo, when guiding, it wasn't wonderful - around 1-2" rms. but I hadn't really balanced stuff right. In the end that was all I was trying to do last night. I had planned to then shoot widefield with the samyang 14mm and asi533, but found the thing won't focus to infinity with the asi adapter! The 14mm I have was obviously a friday afternoon after the pub build - as the focus ring works backwards (infinity marking is actually macro, and visa versa!). It does work ok in the 6d, so.. I dunno.. but I fannied around with it, and the asiair has the 10mm spacer required for correct threads. it will either need about a 7mm spacer instead, OR maybe convert the 14mm to M42 if that is possible like it is with the 135. Anyway, after all that, I stuck a kit 50mm on.. found it doesn't hold focus AT ALL unless in automode when you are moving it against the motor (which is off of course).. and even then, seeing as you have no control of the aperture on it, it was p1ss poor fully open. However, it proved guiding worked ok which was the main thing. I should have then stuck the 135mm on, but by then I'd have enough with the thing.. and forecast was for only another hour of clear sky.

needless to say, it remained cloud free all night...

sorry - that ended up being longer that I expected. sigh.

 

Edited September 16, 2021 by powerlord

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, powerlord said:

tried 3.33 last night.

guiding works!!

however unfortunately not fully tested. I was shooting around Deneb, and though it was in west, for reasons best known to itself goto went up and over, and started tracking with weights in west/camera on east slightly past vertical.

And I know from previous experience that it seemed to work guiding in west anyway.. so really needs another test.

My EQ6r-pro does the same - shooting IC1396 last night, and it went past vertical, weights out to west.

i.e. sort of already meridian flipped.

which is actually good in the sense that I'd far rather it not meridian flip if it has figured out it can 'reach' it starting westerly anyway. But asiair seems oblivous to this - as it kept telling me a meridian flip was XX minutes away.. and then of course gets to that point and no flip happens because it's not needed.

Summit weird there. I suppose it could be asiair in that both mounts are controlled by asiairs, but my understanding of the control is that what direction the mount 'gos to' is enterily up to it - asiair or any other controller just sort of says 'go to  X/Y'.

Im thinking that even though I always 'sync time' with mounts from asiar when I connect it's maybe a BST thing ?

anyhoo, when guiding, it wasn't wonderful - around 1-2" rms. but I hadn't really balanced stuff right. In the end that was all I was trying to do last night. I had planned to then shoot widefield with the samyang 14mm and asi533, but found the thing won't focus to infinity with the asi adapter! The 14mm I have was obviously a friday afternoon after the pub build - as the focus ring works backwards (infinity marking is actually macro, and visa versa!). It does work ok in the 6d, so.. I dunno.. but I fannied around with it, and the asiair has the 10mm spacer required for correct threads. it will either need about a 7mm spacer instead, OR maybe convert the 14mm to M42 if that is possible like it is with the 135. Anyway, after all that, I stuck a kit 50mm on.. found it doesn't hold focus AT ALL unless in automode when you are moving it against the motor (which is off of course).. and even then, seeing as you have no control of the aperture on it, it was p1ss poor fully open. However, it proved guiding worked ok which was the main thing. I should have then stuck the 135mm on, but by then I'd have enough with the thing.. and forecast was for only another hour of clear sky.

needless to say, it remained cloud free all night...

sorry - that ended up being longer that I expected. sigh.

 

Hopefully it's all sorted now for you be interested when you fully test it too, sounds promising for you though. Ive also updated to 3.33 but not has a clear sky to test it yet, hopefully soon, clear skies 

[powerlord]

I might get a chance tonight. though if the bits I've ordered arrive, I'll be trying the new C925 instead to be honest.. and it's a tinecy bit to big for the azgti..

[AstroNebulee]

Version 3.34 is out now. I've not even tried 3.33 yet due to chuffing cloud, the only difference seems to be mcu support added in this firmware update 

Edited September 29, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[GoldTop57]

They are like buses  ....... 😀

[AstroNebulee]

Version 3.36 is out now, wow that's 3 firmware updates I've missed trying out due to cloud 😬 was there a 3.35 even? I might have installed it who knows. I've had more use from my setup just by updating the firmware recently 😂 It's brilliant that they are keeping the firmware updates coming though. 

http://skywatcher.com/download/software/motor-control-firmware/

Says the update has fixed oscillation after high speed slewing. 

Edited October 6, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[JimothyC]

They seem to be really throwing the development resource at the az-gti at the moment. That's quite unusual for a product that's been out for a few years. I wonder if it's a benefit of the similar but new virtuoso scopes, or perhaps there's an new version of the mount on the way. 

[AstroNebulee]

6 minutes ago, JimothyC said:

They seem to be really throwing the development resource at the az-gti at the moment. That's quite unusual for a product that's been out for a few years. I wonder if it's a benefit of the similar but new virtuoso scopes, or perhaps there's an new version of the mount on the way. 

I would expect a bit of both really with the the virtuoso mount now and if a new az gti mount with the improved board inside it. Though what's baffling me is that there was no 3.35 firmware update. It went 3.34 to 3.36. I updated the firmware on mine no issues, now let's hope I have some clear skies sometime to test this one, though all the forecasts suggest cloud 😭

[TerraC]

I've not really had change to update and test mine either.  Damn clouds.   Took my telescope to Isle of Bute last week - thick clouds.  Sods law - clear at home!  🤯

I was going to update to 3.34 but now i'll give 3.36 a try I think.  

I've been getting a little bit of drift.  Not guiding.  Last outing I did 120x 60sec in EQ mode for andromeda.  It drifted quite a lot on the frame and had to re-adjust after an hour.  Not sure if it's my rough PA or something else causing it.  Firmware 3.32  

 

[AstroNebulee]

On 11/10/2021 at 09:50, TerraC said:

I've not really had change to update and test mine either.  Damn clouds.   Took my telescope to Isle of Bute last week - thick clouds.  Sods law - clear at home!  🤯

I was going to update to 3.34 but now i'll give 3.36 a try I think.  

I've been getting a little bit of drift.  Not guiding.  Last outing I did 120x 60sec in EQ mode for andromeda.  It drifted quite a lot on the frame and had to re-adjust after an hour.  Not sure if it's my rough PA or something else causing it.  Firmware 3.32  

 

I hope you get a chance to test it out. I updated to 3.36 and have no drift wurh mine, though I'm running an asiair pro and dither 19 pixels, guiding has been ok and getting some good figures, though the wind was an issue last night with guiding. Imaging on Friday and guiding was excellent, just need to sort the long settle time after a dither. 

Edited October 29, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[Rob20236]

will test this when weather clears. great little mount that really got me into astrophotography. was thinking of selling this too. but will try with my samyang 135 f2 when i get the chance. 

thank you 

[Desmond]

Has anyone had any issues with 3.36?

I tried for the first time last night and PHD2 just would not play ball. It kept stopping after a few steps West and restarting calibration again. 

Anyone else seen that?

I use a cable connection to the mount to avoid WiFi connection issues.

I updated due to runaway with 3.26 (no longer on the website) after a meridian flip (went perfectly) and subsequent dither (ran away with itself).

Using NINA to put everything together.

Any thoughts, much appreciated

 

Considering going back to 3.20...

[AstroNebulee]

3 hours ago, Desmond said:

Has anyone had any issues with 3.36?

I tried for the first time last night and PHD2 just would not play ball. It kept stopping after a few steps West and restarting calibration again. 

Anyone else seen that?

I use a cable connection to the mount to avoid WiFi connection issues.

I updated due to runaway with 3.26 (no longer on the website) after a meridian flip (went perfectly) and subsequent dither (ran away with itself).

Using NINA to put everything together.

Any thoughts, much appreciated

 

Considering going back to 3.20...

That's sad to see your having issues with the new firmware and guiding. 

I don't use NINA sorry and use my asiair pro, hopefully done one will be along that does soon. Maybe something can be adjusted in the callibration settings of Phd2 to help you 

Edited November 2, 2021 by AstroNebulee

[Desmond]

hmmm - never delved into calibration settings. Probably worth a look, thanks  

[Desmond]

I had much better success last night so I'll record here for others what I did just in case it's helpful...

I set up just to try and troubleshoot guiding and with that in mind I sent NINA to M31 and got it to centre the image but not start any imaging.

I then went to PHD2 and set it looping and calibrating manually (I usually had NINA get this going from the Sequence tool)

This time, calibration worked (without me fiddling in any settings).

Once Calibration was good, back to NINA to initiate an imaging session just to check it's all OK.

NINA was set to slew to target, centre target and start guiding.

This all worked perfectly!

So it could be the interface between NINA and PHD2 that went wrong for me - not sure, but I'm going to adapt my workflow for this now.

I did have one runaway though which I caught. Stopped PHD2 manually and set it off again - no further issues.

Funnily I managed to get over 4 hours of guided imaging at 300s per sub after this.

The interesting part?

I had not polar aligned at all!

I was running a test to I plonked the setup down and just let it go.

Maybe I got lucky?!

So for me the findings are:

NINA > PHD2 might have had issues when NINA is waiting on calibration (it just kept stopping and restarting for about 40 mins).

So I'll get PHD2 happy first, on target, then start NINA imaging sequence.

No calibration wait seemed to keep everything happy - fingers crossed...

Hope that might help someone else