Nina not syncing with mount after plate solve.

[Northernlight]

Hi all, im new to Nina and I’m struggling to get Nina to properly sync after a plate solve.

my mount is a skywatcher Star Adventurer GTI and I connect via the Windows SynScan pro app.

so I start the night by firing up the SynScan pro app, then connect to mount in Nina. I then use Nina to do a polar alignment and usually get it within 20-30 arc seconds. I then fire up cartes du ceil, then do a plate solve in Nina to determine the mounts exact position.

this is where things fall apart, as when I slew to a target in Cartes Du ceil, it’s a long way off the target, as if the pointing model has not been updated after the plate solve.

should I be connecting to the mount through Eqascom/Eqmod instead of SynScan pro app ?

 

thanks in advance,

Rich

[ONIKKINEN]

33 minutes ago, Northernlight said:

should I be connecting to the mount through Eqascom/Eqmod instead of SynScan pro app ?

This is worth a try for sure. EQMOD is more reliable than the Skywatcher driver.

I used to connect the mount to my mini-pc with the USB port on the handcontroller and occasionally i would get an unexplainable bug where the mount would slew to the opposite direction than it should based on platesolving. Platesolving also correctly reported that he mount has taken a wrong turn, but didn't sync this. I cant be 100% sure the Skywatcher driver, or its interaction with NINA/ASTAP platesolving was the culprit, but it has not happened since i switched back to EQMOD.

Also, you have some unnecessary steps in your workflow, namely this:

37 minutes ago, Northernlight said:

 I then fire up cartes du ceil, then do a plate solve in Nina to determine the mounts exact position.

You should do all the movements and slews within NINA itself, you dont really need an external software like cartes du ciel. Doing everything in NINA has the least chance of some weird software interaction throwing a wrench in the works, so it is in my opinion preferred.

Just create a sequence of the target you want to image and have the slew to target and Center target options on. NINA will then use whatever platesolver you have linked to it to determine the mount position after the first slew has completed. There is no benefit to doing a platesolve before the slew, as the slew will almost certainly be off target anyway. In short: Just let NINA handle things for the easiest experience.

[david_taurus83]

16 hours ago, Northernlight said:

my mount is a skywatcher Star Adventurer GTI and I connect via the Windows SynScan pro app.

I think that will be the issue. As mentioned above, try using EQMod? Just to point out, on my first AZGTi, I had to leave the encoders on otherwise EQMod wouldn't sync its position after a plate solve. Yes, a different mount but I bet they are very similar internally so worth bearing in mind. 

15 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

You should do all the movements and slews within NINA itself, you dont really need an external software like cartes du ciel. Doing everything in NINA has the least chance of some weird software interaction throwing a wrench in the works, so it is in my opinion preferred.

Generally I follow this rule myself but there are some occasions when I want to also use CdC. When calibrating PHD I like to slew to near meridian in the south and you can't do this with NINA. Also, if you don't have an autofocuser and still use a B mask you need an external app like CdC to select and slew to a bright star. 

[ONIKKINEN]

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

Generally I follow this rule myself but there are some occasions when I want to also use CdC. When calibrating PHD I like to slew to near meridian in the south and you can't do this with NINA. Also, if you don't have an autofocuser and still use a B mask you need an external app like CdC to select and slew to a bright star. 

You can use the manual focus stars tab in imaging to slew to a bright star. The list is extensive enough that so far have never run into issues trying to find a nice area of the sky for calibration. Much more convenient than fiddling with an external app imo.

[david_taurus83]

1 hour ago, ONIKKINEN said:

You can use the manual focus stars tab in imaging to slew to a bright star. The list is extensive enough that so far have never run into issues trying to find a nice area of the sky for calibration. Much more convenient than fiddling with an external app imo.

? I didnt know there was a star list in there now. I use the older stable 2.1. Will have to have a look though I have an autofocuser anyway but still use CdC for slewing to near south for PHD purposes.

[Northernlight]

So i switched to Eqmod for the mount connection, and still not having much luck, as the pointing is still way off after plate solving.

 

Well there are 2 issues that i'm still facing :-

1) I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong, but it in Nina when i use the Star Atlas i cant seem to fins any stars, for example, i wanted to slew to Dubhe last night, so i searched for it in the star atlas and it found nothing, so i had to install CDC to allow me to point to Dubhe so that i could use the star to focus my mirrorless camera.

2) I then tried Nina to plate solve with Astap which completed the plate solve without issues, I then slewed to M101 from within Nina, and when i took an image it was miles off, so i tried plate solving and slewing again from within Nina and again the pointing was miles off  - It feels like the plate solving is doing nothing to sync it's position.

 

[ONIKKINEN]

22 hours ago, Northernlight said:

So i switched to Eqmod for the mount connection, and still not having much luck, as the pointing is still way off after plate solving.

 

Well there are 2 issues that i'm still facing :-

1) I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong, but it in Nina when i use the Star Atlas i cant seem to fins any stars, for example, i wanted to slew to Dubhe last night, so i searched for it in the star atlas and it found nothing, so i had to install CDC to allow me to point to Dubhe so that i could use the star to focus my mirrorless camera.

2) I then tried Nina to plate solve with Astap which completed the plate solve without issues, I then slewed to M101 from within Nina, and when i took an image it was miles off, so i tried plate solving and slewing again from within Nina and again the pointing was miles off  - It feels like the plate solving is doing nothing to sync it's position.

 

1) use the manual focus stars tab in the image section of NINA. Dubhe is in that list for sure. The sky atlas you mention is more for sequence planning and has many deep sky objects but not stars (i think).

2) have you set the sync and re-center options to be on? These need to be on or what you just mentioned happens. You also need to have a reasonable tolerance in the settings. For example if you have the tolerance at 30 arcminutes then Astap will deem an error of 30 arcminutes good enough and go ahead with imaging.

Are you imaging a sequence or are you snapshotting? If the latter option you need to:

1) slew to M101 (or where the mount thinks M101 is)

2) platesolve in the platesolving tab with the re-center option on. Platesolving will retry for how ever many tries you have in the settings. If your focal length and pixel size are correct and you have less than 5 degrees of error between the mount and sky the platesolve should complete in a second.

[Northernlight]

4 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

1) use the manual focus stars tab in the image section of NINA. Dubhe is in that list for sure. The sky atlas you mention is more for sequence planning and has many deep sky objects but not stars (i think).

2) have you set the sync and re-center options to be on? These need to be on or what you just mentioned happens. You also need to have a reasonable tolerance in the settings. For example if you have the tolerance at 30 arcminutes then Astap will deem an error of 30 arcminutes good enough and go ahead with imaging.

Are you imaging a sequence or are you snapshotting? If the latter option you need to:

1) slew to M101 (or where the mount thinks M101 is)

2) platesolve in the platesolving tab with the re-center option on. Platesolving will retry for how ever many tries you have in the settings. If your focal length and pixel size are correct and you have less than 5 degrees of error between the mount and sky the platesolve should complete in a second.

Many thanks ONIKKINEN,  i didn't see those options as i'm new to the program and still getting used to the interface. If it's clear tonight i'll give it a try and see how i get on.

Rich

[ONIKKINEN]

On 29/05/2023 at 18:02, david_taurus83 said:

? I didnt know there was a star list in there now. I use the older stable 2.1. Will have to have a look though I have an autofocuser anyway but still use CdC for slewing to near south for PHD purposes.

 

7 minutes ago, Northernlight said:

Many thanks ONIKKINEN,  i didn't see those options as i'm new to the program and still getting used to the interface. If it's clear tonight i'll give it a try and see how i get on.

Rich

Actually the manual focus targets thing is apparently not visible by default. You'll need to click the star icon in the top right corner of the imaging tab to make it visible in the lower "tabs" type toolbar.

This is in version 1.10, so its been there a while. Maybe its time to see what the newer versions have to offer.

[scotty38]

15 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

This is in version 1.10, so its been there a while. Maybe its time to see what the newer versions have to offer.

Well, among config options blah, blah then Plugins 🙂

 

Struggling to remember but even if they were in v1 there are plenty that would not be v1 compatible

 

[Northernlight]

Yes I found it thanks. I did not even notice the option on the top right hand corner. Nina’s menu layouts are not the most intuitive, but it’s like everything else, I just need to use it and become familiar with it.

unfortunately the forecast says thick clouds for the next week, but hopefully I can catch an hour between the clouds to test the sync.

Rich.

[mattadams]

I had similar issues recently with my GTi. A couple of things you could try:

- update both your motor firmware and the synscan software (recent synscan update removes a sync method)
- clear your star alignment with each session to ensure you're starting off at home / clean slate
- eqmod may help as well (I went down that route when I was having issues), but I found the mount operated almost identically after I updated FW / SS (though note: home position between eqmod and SS are 90 degrees from each other for some reason - maybe I haven't set this up correctly though).

HTH
Matt

[Starflyer]

On 29/05/2023 at 16:02, david_taurus83 said:

? I didnt know there was a star list in there now. I use the older stable 2.1. Will have to have a look though I have an autofocuser anyway but still use CdC for slewing to near south for PHD purposes.

Use PHD itself for slewing south for calibration.  Open the PHD2 menu; Tools / Drift Align and click Slew, this will take you to the ideal position for calibration, close the Drift Align tool and calibrate as normal.

I believe there's an option in the latest dev build to make this process slicker.

[Northernlight]

5 hours ago, mattadams said:

I had similar issues recently with my GTi. A couple of things you could try:

- update both your motor firmware and the synscan software (recent synscan update removes a sync method)
- clear your star alignment with each session to ensure you're starting off at home / clean slate
- eqmod may help as well (I went down that route when I was having issues), but I found the mount operated almost identically after I updated FW / SS (though note: home position between eqmod and SS are 90 degrees from each other for some reason - maybe I haven't set this up correctly though).

HTH
Matt

I think my mount is ok, i literally just didn't know where to look in Nina.  Tonight looks like it's going to be clear, so will hopefully get a change to try the alignment process again tonight.

[Northernlight]

1 hour ago, Starflyer said:

Use PHD itself for slewing south for calibration.  Open the PHD2 menu; Tools / Drift Align and click Slew, this will take you to the ideal position for calibration, close the Drift Align tool and calibrate as normal.

I believe there's an option in the latest dev build to make this process slicker.

Hi starflyer, 

Thanks for the advice, but i dont have any issues with the polar alignment, as the polar alignment routine in Nina works really well.  I literally just didn't know where to look in Nina to enable the Sync option which is not enabled by default for some reason in Nina.

Now i'm just waiting for a clear night to test again now that the Sync is enabled.

[Northernlight]

Well I got some clear sky for an hour last night, and now that the sync is properly enabled in Nina it’s working perfectly with cartes du ceil, so I’m a happy man as I’ve got a single app for my polar alignment and plate solving.

I can now easily get under 30 arc seconds on my polar alignment without the need for a separate polar alignment camera and then get perfect pointing accuracy with the plate solving, happy days all round 😁