HEQ 5 Pro Fault

[Detec]

Last time I had a clear night, I polar aligned using my ASIAIR then I put a plan in for C31 Flaming star neb.  When it should have slewed to C31, it just aimed at my garage wall, miles from C31. I couldnt get it right on the night, in the end I assumed my power bank was low and so the mount couldnyt slew right.

So tonight I did the same again, good polar alignment still using my ASIAIR, and again the mount slewed to the wrong place. Power bank was fine. I updated ASIAIR, still the same.

So I disconnected the asiair, and reset the mount and run it from the synscan. Polar aligned fine, the I chose singe star alignment and chose Capella in the east., and the mount slewed to the west. So I reset and started again, and again it to took me to the wrong part of the sky. Never had this problem before.

Can anyone shed some light on what might be wrong?

[Budgie1]

When you say you reset, what/how did you reset?

Have you sent the mount to the home position on the handset to confirm that it's pointing North & scope-up?

Sometimes, if the position is changed using the clutches, the mount will still have the old Home Position registered and will work from that to point at an object. Get the mount to put itself to where it thinks the Home Position is and then release the RA & DEC axis clutches and manually put the mount to the correct Home Position should sort the issue.

[AstroMuni]

1 hour ago, Detec said:

So I disconnected the asiair, and reset the mount and run it from the synscan. Polar aligned fine, the I chose singe star alignment and chose Capella in the east., and the mount slewed to the west. So I reset and started again, and again it to took me to the wrong part of the sky. Never had this problem before.

When you attach the scope on which side are the screws that hold the scope in the dovetail. I have noticed on mine that if I have the screws on right hand side I can get the wrong slew. I am sure this has something to do with home position, but havent delved too deep into the why.

[Detec]

9 hours ago, Budgie1 said:

When you say you reset, what/how did you reset?

Have you sent the mount to the home position on the handset to confirm that it's pointing North & scope-up?

Sometimes, if the position is changed using the clutches, the mount will still have the old Home Position registered and will work from that to point at an object. Get the mount to put itself to where it thinks the Home Position is and then release the RA & DEC axis clutches and manually put the mount to the correct Home Position should sort the issue.

I turned off the power, and started from scratch, like I always used to do before having the ASIAIR.

[Detec]

8 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

When you attach the scope on which side are the screws that hold the scope in the dovetail. I have noticed on mine that if I have the screws on right hand side I can get the wrong slew. I am sure this has something to do with home position, but havent delved too deep into the why.

Screws on the left. Its always been fine before. 

[Rallemikken]

Most likely you have accidentially changed your coordinates or time. Happened to me many times, while fumbling in the dark with the handcontroller.

Or if this is managed by software, check if the right driver is choosen in the dropdown list. Managed my heq5 through the handcontroller in the beginning. The SynScan and SynScanLegacy indi-drivers where not interchangable.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Rallemikken

[Detec]

Sorry guys I am leading you on a wild goose chase. I just realised I put the time into my synscan in dd-mm-yy format, what a pillock.

The only reason I was trying the handset was because my ASIAIR was taking me to the wrong place after polar alignment.  So I am back to my original fault now. Anyone know what could be wrong with my ASIAIR, which has been working good up to now.

So I will explain again, using my ASIAIR I polar align perfectly. Then I enter my plan, Flaming star nebula C31, 300 seconds 40 exposures. Now normally when I run the plan it drives perfecly to the object then plate solves and starts the exposures. But this time it points down at my garage wall, nowhere near C31. So I send it to Polaris, it drives there fine but then says it cannot plate solve, I dont know why because it previously did it.

So then I sent it to Capella which was pretty close to C31, and again it pointed down at the garage wall. This is the second outing it has done this. The power supply was fine. I even updated the ASIAIR to the latest firmware and it still did the same.

Any Ideas?

[Chefgage]

Do you tell the mount to go to the home position using the asiair after polar aligning?  This is how I do it and I seem to remember a time I did not and went straight to the target from poloar aligning (so heq5 pro at 60 degrees from home position). The mount tried to plate solve the target but failed (it was obvious it would as it was pointing nowhere near the target) it then moved again but not to the correct position and tried and failed to plate solve again. After about the fourth time it finally managed to move and centre on the target.

Never had this issue when polar aligning, then send mount to home position, then slew to target and plate solve using asiair.

[Detec]

2 hours ago, Chefgage said:

Do you tell the mount to go to the home position using the asiair after polar aligning?  This is how I do it and I seem to remember a time I did not and went straight to the target from poloar aligning (so heq5 pro at 60 degrees from home position). The mount tried to plate solve the target but failed (it was obvious it would as it was pointing nowhere near the target) it then moved again but not to the correct position and tried and failed to plate solve again. After about the fourth time it finally managed to move and centre on the target.

Never had this issue when polar aligning, then send mount to home position, then slew to target and plate solve using asiair.

Up to now I never have had to set a home position. I always start off with the mount pointing north, and the 52 degrees latitude set up but I have never said return to a home position in the past and never had a problem. I dont even know how to set a home position in ASIAIR. But maybe I should look into that.  Also when I polar aligned it, it should know where it is and be able to go to a target?

[Budgie1]

I also return the mount to the Home Position after PA so the mount knows where it is.

To set the basic Home Position is quite easy.

On your ASIAir, go to the mount menu and scroll to the bottom and you'll see a green button with Home Position on it. Click on this and then OK and mount will go to where it currently has the Home Position stored.

If the mount is now pointing counter weight down and scope to the North then great, that's about where you need it. If it's pointing somewhere else then undo the clutches on the RA & DEC axis to put them into the counter weight down/scope North position. and then lock the clutches. I've put marks on the RA & DEC axis so I can quickly put it back to the Home Position after balancing the mount, this just makes life a bit easier because the setting circles can move.

Here's a video which explains the process.