Getting to grips with meridian flips, will my gear do it?

[LaurenceT]

I'm trying to get my head round meridian flips but being an absolute beginner I'm worried about my setup doing it. The way it's set up is with the Asiair and mini router being placed on the underside of the dovetail bar at the front. When I rotate the RA axis eventually the Asiair will come into contact with the mount. Does a meridian flip rotate the RA axis far enough to do this?

[teoria_del_big_bang]

The meridian flip will rotate the Ra axis around 180 degrees and takes place when the Ra axis is just past the 90 degrees.
But looking at your pictures that looks like the DEC axis that will cause the collision, the DEC axis is the one that rotates around the counterweight bar.


But even so personally I would not be happy leaving any equipment in a position that can hit any part of the mount and would make efforts to mount it on the top side of the dovetail somewhere.
I do not know if it helps but the video below shows your mount performing a flip.

Steve

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Or mount it on the front of the dovetail on the underside and route the cables carefully back so they cannot get caught. On the front it can never hit the mount throughout the range of the DEC axis.

Steve

[Tomatobro]

I mount my guide scope on the counter weight bar and it works well. If the ASIair was moved to the bar it would distribute the weight better and solve the flip interference problem.

[LaurenceT]

I've just managed to mount both the Asiair and guidescope/camera together on the top, all axes are clear for full rotation. All I have to do is to route cables along the side of the dovetail bar.

@Tomatobro that looks interesting, thanks. How do you clamp the guidescope to the bar to maintain alignment with the scope?

Many thanks to @teoria_del_big_bang for your replies.

[AstroNebulee]

I had the same issue/conundrum when I mounted my AAP originally in a similar way on the underside of my dovetail bar (shown in orange) So moved it 90 degree's via an angled camera bracket to the position it's in now and no issues with meridian flips, nice and evenly balanced,  just the dither settling issues after it haha (only southern meridian flip). I wish I had a better way of routing the cables (ocd issue) near the counterweight bar but the loops and configuration are enough to give slack in any direction. 

Edited April 1, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[LaurenceT]

In the end I realised that the solution was to raise the height of the rig from the mount to enable the underslung Asiair to clear the obstacles. I cobbled an extra dovetail plate onto the existing plate and the elevation now means complete motion in both axes.....looks weird I know😅. The other method I tried earlier was unbalanced and top heavy, it's a pity I couldn't use an L bracket as Lee suggested, would have saved a lot of bother.

 

 

[AstroNebulee]

14 minutes ago, LaurenceT said:

In the end I realised that the solution was to raise the height of the rig from the mount to enable the underslung Asiair to clear the obstacles. I cobbled an extra dovetail plate onto the existing plate and the elevation now means complete motion in both axes.....looks weird I know😅. The other method I tried earlier was unbalanced and top heavy, it's a pity I couldn't use an L bracket as Lee suggested, would have saved a lot of bother.

 

 

Looks great Laurence, I'd be interested to see your cable management technique with regard to power supply to the mount, AAP and eq dir cable 👍 😊

[Tomatobro]

3 hours ago, LaurenceT said:

How do you clamp the guidescope to the bar to maintain alignment with the scope?

I made a custom clamp for the counterweight bar. I can move it up or down for balance and rotate for alignment. I use pulse guiding via PHD on a laptop. Guide scope alignment is not critical as long as its near enough pointing to the same bit of sky. You can see a custom red counterweight which is lighter than the one supplied with the SW adventurer.

[LaurenceT]

18 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

I had the same issue/conundrum when I mounted my AAP originally in a similar way on the underside of my dovetail bar (shown in orange) So moved it 90 degree's via an angled camera bracket to the position it's in now and no issues with meridian flips, nice and evenly balanced,  just the dither settling issues after it haha (only southern meridian flip). I wish I had a better way of routing the cables (ocd issue) near the counterweight bar but the loops and configuration are enough to give slack in any direction. 

Lee, looking at your setup I'm interested in your counterweight kit. At the moment I have the Skywatcher  Star Adventurer kit

Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Counterweight Kit | First Light Optics

 but I don't think it's enough weight if I add to my system as I'm trying to. Looking at your counterweights it seems that you have 2 weights. How did you get 2 weights?

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, LaurenceT said:

Lee, looking at your setup I'm interested in your counterweight kit. At the moment I have the Skywatcher  Star Adventurer kit

Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Counterweight Kit | First Light Optics

 but I don't think it's enough weight if I add to my system as I'm trying to. Looking at your counterweights it seems that you have 2 weights. How did you get 2 weights?

Hi Laurence 

I had to buy another star adventurer counterweight kit as I couldn't just buy the weight separately. So I've 2 shafts doing nothing haha as I use an m12 threaded bolt for my shaft as a bit longer 

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited April 2, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[LaurenceT]

1 hour ago, AstroNebulee said:

Hi Laurence 

I had to buy another star adventurer counterweight kit as I couldn't just buy the weight separately. So I've 2 shafts doing nothing haha as I use an m12 threaded bolt for my shaft as a bit longer 

Cheers 

Lee 

I thought that might have been the case😀