Skywatcher AZ GTI mount owners thread

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, Crist Rigotti said:

Thanks guys.  Next time the skies are clear I'll try it out.

Let us know how you get on when you next have clear skies 👍

Cheers 

Lee 

[bomberbaz]

Hello all. I received my OTA back today from RVO, turns out collimation had been knocked out, most likely during delivery.

Anyway, conditions are awful tonight (full moon) but I will swing the scope onto a bright open cluster (ngc6633 looks good) that is in right sky position to test it for the coma aberration.

Not going to be a late night, already had a long day.

[bomberbaz]

On 02/06/2022 at 18:41, AstroNebulee said:

If all your stars are pointing outwards from the center your camera is to close to the FF if the stars are going around the centre of your image then it's to close, see attached image. 

I still have a very slight tilt issue but I think if I add 0.2mm more shim to the imaging train bringing it to 64mm it'll be better, but like I say I'm being really picky now. 

For my set up I use a 2 inch zwo filter drawer as I have a 2 inch astronomik L3 filter 👍. 

Good luck in the loft finding the FF guide, let us know how you get on. 

Cheers 

Lee 

think my sensor is to close and needs a spacer, but not sure by how much. Any rough idea to start with Lee

 Well focused

 Deffo pointing inwards

[tompato]

Frustrating first night with the Az-Gti in equatorial mode. Might have something to do with controlling it with the AsiAir.

First issue was the latest firmware was throwing an error when trying to flash it, so found v3.38 or something and that worked fine.

Then I plonked it down roughly facing Polaris and set about doing the polar align. Couldn't get any closer than like 10' as eveytime I moved the ioptron wedge, especially in azimuth adjustments it just jumped from 10' one side to the other. Gave up in the end.

Then i tried using the Goto feature but it would always end up miles off and often pointing at the floor, so not sure what was going on there.

Im going to try the Syncscan app next time and see if the alignment and tracking works okay there, as opposed to with the AsiAir 

 

[Crist Rigotti]

Looks like semi clear skies tonight.  We'll give it a try.  I plan on taking pictures of my set up which might help in troubleshooting.  Fingers crossed!

[Crist Rigotti]

Well, tonight was a fail.

After getting set up and doing a PA, then plate solving, I decided to go to Regulus.  It's position in the sky was over my left shoulder facing North.  The Telescope slewed to  position below Polaris. 

I'm including pictures of my set up.  The red ones are from the Synscan Pro App in the EQ mode just to show the settings and software loads.  The rest are from the ASIAIR Plus.  The last picture shows the telescope position as slewed.  The telescope should be looking in the direction of my left shoulder.  The picture was taken facing North.

I must be missing something basic.  I'm hoping you guys can help figure it out.  Thanks.

[AstroNebulee]

9 hours ago, Crist Rigotti said:

Well, tonight was a fail.

After getting set up and doing a PA, then plate solving, I decided to go to Regulus.  It's position in the sky was over my left shoulder facing North.  The Telescope slewed to  position below Polaris. 

I'm including pictures of my set up.  The red ones are from the Synscan Pro App in the EQ mode just to show the settings and software loads.  The rest are from the ASIAIR Plus.  The last picture shows the telescope position as slewed.  The telescope should be looking in the direction of my left shoulder.  The picture was taken facing North.

I must be missing something basic.  I'm hoping you guys can help figure it out.  Thanks.

That's a real shame it didn't work well last night. One thing jumped out on me was in your settings from the AAplus is that your mount says Skywatcher alt az wedge for some reason? Try setting this to eq mod mount (that is what I use, when I use my eq dir ftdi cable connected from my AApro to az gti) or as Elp suggested skywatcher AZ gti. But eq mod mount should work perfectly, then I expect your issue will be solved 😊

What cable do you use to connect your AAplus to az gti? 

Don't worry about using the synscan app, it's not needed with your AAplus. 

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited June 16, 2022 by AstroNebulee
Spelling

[AstroNebulee]

9 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

Hello all. I received my OTA back today from RVO, turns out collimation had been knocked out, most likely during delivery.

That's excellent news you got your scope back and you were proved right with the collimation issue. Good job by RVO in sorting this for you Steve. 

5 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

think my sensor is to close and needs a spacer, but not sure by how much. Any rough idea to start with Lee

 Well focused

 Deffo pointing inwards

Yes as you say the sensor is definitely to close. What is the spacing at the moment from your camera sensor to the FF, or what spacers are you using atm? That'll give me some idea on what's needed. I know 55mm is the stated amount of spacing  but can vary wildly in my opinion. Mine is up to 64mm!

Have you an image of your camera connected to the scope please Steve 👍

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited June 16, 2022 by AstroNebulee
addition

[AstroNebulee]

4 hours ago, tompato said:

Frustrating first night with the Az-Gti in equatorial mode. Might have something to do with controlling it with the AsiAir.

First issue was the latest firmware was throwing an error when trying to flash it, so found v3.38 or something and that worked fine.

Then I plonked it down roughly facing Polaris and set about doing the polar align. Couldn't get any closer than like 10' as eveytime I moved the ioptron wedge, especially in azimuth adjustments it just jumped from 10' one side to the other. Gave up in the end.

Then i tried using the Goto feature but it would always end up miles off and often pointing at the floor, so not sure what was going on there.

Im going to try the Syncscan app next time and see if the alignment and tracking works okay there, as opposed to with the AsiAir 

 

That's not good at all, sorry to hear your issues. 

Obviously your wedge is the issue with the PA. I don't know anything about the ioptron wedge and how it can be tweaked for fine adjustments. 

One suggestion on the goto is maybe that the PA wasn't good enough to get close to your goto (though I'm just throwing ideas out here). But would of thought if it was plate solved it may pull it back in to the target?

Also after doing your PA do you send the mount back to its home position first, I find this can help in some situations. 

Is it the latest app and firmware for your Asiair? 

Have a look at @Elpworkflow on page 12  dated January 21st, maybe of help too 👌

It would be good if you could upload some images of your Asiair settings screens if possible to help us look at it too 😊

It's a good idea to test the alignment using just the synscan app. 

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited June 16, 2022 by AstroNebulee
addition

[Elp]

I've got the ioptron wedge also, not in the same league as the William optics one but I find it okay to PA, I also get the to and froing sometimes but you have to learn to do the minimal of turning of the knobs (like imperceptible turning) and it gets there. I've only used the ioptron with a DSLR rig setup though and imagine with a bit more weight on it, it may be a bit more difficult.

[tompato]

2 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

That's not good at all, sorry to hear your issues. 

Obviously your wedge is the issue with the PA. I don't know anything about the ioptron wedge and how it can be tweaked for fine adjustments. 

One suggestion on the goto is maybe that the PA wasn't good enough to get close to your goto (though I'm just throwing ideas out here). But would of thought if it was plate solved it may pull it back in to the target?

Also after doing your PA do you send the mount back to its home position first, I find this can help in some situations. 

Is it the latest app and firmware for your Asiair? 

Have a look at @Elpworkflow on page 12  dated January 21st, maybe of help too 👌

It would be good if you could upload some images of your Asiair settings screens if possible to help us look at it too 😊

It's a good idea to test the alignment using just the synscan app. 

Cheers 

Lee 

Thanks Lee,

Yeah all the latest versions of software, apart from the Az-Gti being on one firmware back from the very latest as that wasn't flashing properly.

I didn't go back to home so maybe that is my issue. I am going to just try with the Syncscan App first next time and get it working with that. Then I can at least eliminate a physical setup issue and move on to getting the AsiAir settings correct.

I did have it set as EqMod and connected using the EqMod FTDI cable and slewing around manually seemed to be working fine.

I'll get some screenshots of settings next time ☺️

[herne]

4 hours ago, Crist Rigotti said:

Well, tonight was a fail.

After getting set up and doing a PA, then plate solving, I decided to go to Regulus.  It's position in the sky was over my left shoulder facing North.  The Telescope slewed to  position below Polaris. 

I'm including pictures of my set up.  The red ones are from the Synscan Pro App in the EQ mode just to show the settings and software loads.  The rest are from the ASIAIR Plus.  The last picture shows the telescope position as slewed.  The telescope should be looking in the direction of my left shoulder.  The picture was taken facing North.

I must be missing something basic.  I'm hoping you guys can help figure it out.  Thanks.

When you say “doing a PA, then plate solving” what do you mean?  With my AZ GTi and AAP I do my PA and that’s it, I don’t then plate solve anything else separately.

I PA, then simply tell the mount to slew (using the goto function) to a nearby star so that I can fine tune focus.  Once done I then use goto to find my night’s target.

+1 for @AstroNebulee for spotting your AAP says Mount - Skywatcher Alt-Az Wedge.  If you are connecting the mount to the AZ GTi with an eqmod ftdi cable it should be set to EQMOD mount 👍.

One other thought - double check your eq wedge is set to the correct latitude for your location.  My Skywatcher wedge (all Skywatcher wedges?) have their scales inverted for some unknown reason.  So for my 51 degree north location my wedge is set to 39 degrees on the scale ie., 90 - 51 = 39.

(Actually I just checked and it’s currently showing 36 degrees, will have to adjust that next time I’m out.  I guess it dropped a little over time).

[Elp]

1 hour ago, tompato said:

didn't go back to home

I never used to do this when I started, asking it to go home also was wrong so I had to manually declutch and move the mount into the home position, then ask it to go home at which point it doesn't seem to move if it's already there. Any goto thereafter has worked perfectly, across two different azgtis and asiairs.

[adyj1]

1 hour ago, herne said:

My Skywatcher wedge (all Skywatcher wedges?) have their scales inverted for some unknown reason.  So for my 51 degree north location my wedge is set to 39 degrees on the scale ie., 90 - 51 = 39.

It was designed to be used with the Star Adventurer, which aligns in a different axis.

 

1 hour ago, herne said:

So for my 51 degree north location my wedge is set to 39 degrees on the scale ie., 90 - 51 = 39.

The actual setting will depend on how accurately you have leveled the tripod, for a start. Given that and the low accuracy of the scale itself, it is probably best just used a rough guide to start the PA process rather than expecting to be bang on.  

[bomberbaz]

Here goes Lee. I do have a 21mm spacer too. 

I have actually added the mini spacer rings below the 16.5 since last night but I think I will remove the 16.5 and slap the 21 in its place to see if that helps

 

[herne]

1 hour ago, adyj1 said:

The actual setting will depend on how accurately you have leveled the tripod, for a start. Given that and the low accuracy of the scale itself, it is probably best just used a rough guide to start the PA process rather than expecting to be bang on.  

Yeh agreed.  The comment's more aimed at the person who "may" have set the wedge to 32 degrees given their latitude, rather than 58 degrees, and be unaware of the wedge's scaling 👍.

[AstroNebulee]

59 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Here goes Lee. I do have a 21mm spacer too. 

I have actually added the mini spacer rings below the 16.5 since last night but I think I will remove the 16.5 and slap the 21 in its place to see if that helps

 

Hi Steve 

Thank you for the image of your setup. You need both 21 and 16.5 mm spacers on your setup. 

So take off the shims you've added and just add the 21mm one to the 16.5mm and 11mm spacers already there. That will be 55mm backspacing (including the 6.5mm to the camera sensor) you should be good to go. May need an extra shim to fine tune after you do the next tests. Just see how it goes first. If you have any filters after the FF you may need to add 1mm shim but like I say check first. 

Cheers 

Lee 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by AstroNebulee
addition

[AstroNebulee]

4 hours ago, herne said:

When you say “doing a PA, then plate solving” what do you mean?  With my AZ GTi and AAP I do my PA and that’s it, I don’t then plate solve anything else separately.

I PA, then simply tell the mount to slew (using the goto function) to a nearby star so that I can fine tune focus.  Once done I then use goto to find my night’s target.

I do much the same. PA, then send to home, then send to a bright star to focus, plate solve it to the centre, do my focus on it. Then send it to my target, plate solve to get in centred, do my calibration of guidescope, then off imaging. 

Cheers 

Lee 

[tompato]

4 hours ago, herne said:

One other thought - double check your eq wedge is set to the correct latitude for your location.  My Skywatcher wedge (all Skywatcher wedges?) have their scales inverted for some unknown reason.  So for my 51 degree north location my wedge is set to 39 degrees on the scale ie., 90 - 51 = 39.

Yeah I actually got this right haha, quite unlike me. I had it set to 52 for my SGP and I was looking at the Az-Gti and I realised it would be at 90 degrees to the usual axis so minuses 52 from 90 and set it to about 38.

It actually wasn't too far off when I did the PA routine, I think I just need to get used to very gently tweaking the adjustment bolts. The longitude adjustments weren't too bad but the latitude adjustment bolt seemed to jump quite a bit when trying to move it down, but did seem to adjust better when moving back up. I don't think it's the greatest design but I'm sure I'll get better.

I was pretty surprised how far off it seemed when it had roughly PA'd and then I tried the Goto, but I'll try the workflow suggestions and go back home next time and see if it helps, failing that I'll just try Synscan without the AsiAir.

[herne]

15 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

I do much the same. PA, then send to home, then send to a bright star to focus, plate solve it to the centre, do my focus on it. Then send it to my target, plate solve to get in centred, do my calibration of guidescope, then off imaging. 

Cheers 

Lee 

What do you mean “then send to home”?  Also “plate solve it to the centre”?

I’ll start by pointing (roughly) north with the scope/camera vertically in line with the mount/tripod.  Start PA, it’ll rotate c.60 degrees.  I’ll PA accurately from there and then - without doing anything else - tell it to goto a star to complete focus from that 60 degree angle.  I don’t rotate it to home first.  After that, it’s a straight goto for my night’s target.

And when you say you plate solve it to the centre (for the focus star and your target) I’m reading that like you are doing something additional to plate solve?  Or am I misunderstanding?  My AAP plate solves and centres automatically on my focus star/target without me having to instruct it to do anything else.

[AstroNebulee]

39 minutes ago, herne said:

What do you mean “then send to home”?  Also “plate solve it to the centre”?

I’ll start by pointing (roughly) north with the scope/camera vertically in line with the mount/tripod.  Start PA, it’ll rotate c.60 degrees.  I’ll PA accurately from there and then - without doing anything else - tell it to goto a star to complete focus from that 60 degree angle.  I don’t rotate it to home first.  After that, it’s a straight goto for my night’s target.

And when you say you plate solve it to the centre (for the focus star and your target) I’m reading that like you are doing something additional to plate solve?  Or am I misunderstanding?  My AAP plate solves and centres automatically on my focus star/target without me having to instruct it to do anything else.

After I've done my PA I send the mount back to the home position (counterweights down and scope vertical and pointing north, normal parked postion) if that makes sense. 

I don't have the button 'goto auto centre' switched on my AApro, never have, that's where the confusion arises I suspect. I will switch the goto auto centre button on, to save doing the manual plate solve. It's just the way I've always done it and like the extra control over the AApro. 

Basically I do what you do but manually. 

Hope that makes better sense. 😊

Edited June 16, 2022 by AstroNebulee
addition

[herne]

1 hour ago, AstroNebulee said:

After I've done my PA I send the mount back to the home position (counterweights down and scope vertical and pointing north, normal parked postion) if that makes sense.

Yeh, I was just wondering why the extra step of sending to home between PA and goto star for focus?  I don't do that "home" step so perhaps I'm missing something (although I've never had any problems with missing that step)?

1 hour ago, AstroNebulee said:

I don't have the button 'goto auto centre' switched on my AApro, never have, that's where the confusion arises I suspect. I will switch the goto auto centre button on, to save doing the manual plate solve. It's just the way I've always done it and like the extra control over the AApro.

Ahh ok gotcha 👍.

[Elp]

The sending to home is a check to ensure the mount alignment correlates to the surrounding star environment in a way, as the home position is always in the same spot orientated to Polaris you can check this visually by sending to home. It's more difficult slewing the scope to a target and knowing off hand whether it is correctly pointing to where it's supposed to be plate solving or not. I always send to home before PA and after PA so I know it's correct. Before I never used to and had gotos going in all manner of directions (usually into the ground). This from my experience is down to the home position not being set correct.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Elp

[Crist Rigotti]

12 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

That's a real shame it didn't work well last night. One thing jumped out on me was in your settings from the AAplus is that your mount says Skywatcher alt az wedge for some reason? Try setting this to eq mod mount (that is what I use, when I use my eq dir ftdi cable connected from my AApro to az gti) or as Elp suggested skywatcher AZ gti. But eq mod mount should work perfectly, then I expect your issue will be solved 😊

What cable do you use to connect your AAplus to az gti? 

Don't worry about using the synscan app, it's not needed with your AAplus. 

Cheers 

Lee 

Here are my choices from ASIAIR Plus.

[AstroNebulee]

14 minutes ago, Crist Rigotti said:

Here are my choices from ASIAIR Plus.

 Go up the 'E' listings and pick EQ mod in the mount settings

Edited June 16, 2022 by AstroNebulee