Moon and asiair plus

[ckp82]

How do I go about finding the moon using the asi air plus? It isn't as easy as typing in the moon and watching the telescope slew to it.

I know the easiest way would be to do it manually. However, I don't have a star diagonal or rdf as I bought this telescope purely for eea. It is a lot harder than you would think trying to do it without these.

Thanks.

 

[StevieDvd]

Easier to watch a video than describe it in text:

For example this video

Covers doing a simple plate solve to let the Asiair know it's on target and selecting the sky atlas option for sun, moon & planets.

 

[saac]

Start with the scope in the Home position. Turn on AsiAir and once initialised simply search Moon in the "go to" menu; if the Moon is above the horizon the telescope should slew to the correct position and centre.  It really should be as simple as that.  A good practice is to conduct a "plate solve" and "sync" on first moving the telescope away from the home position. This should make subsequent "goto" movements more accurate. 

I'm assuming that you have already Polar Aligned, if not you should do that first - you could do it manually or use the AsiAir routine which makes quick and easy work of it.

Jim 

 

Edited August 4 by saac

[ckp82]

Thanks for the link @StevieDvd and the explanation @saac

This seems too easy. Last time I tried I couldn't get it to work. I must have been using the synscan app before, it was a while ago. I'll follow your advice next time I try.

Thanks.

[Elp]

If you're using the asiair as the mount controller you don't need any other software. Do the focus routine first, then PA (order of operations mostly goes in order of panels top to bottom with the air on the RHS of the screen), then return the mount to home (under the mount tab and near the bottom of the screen - if your home's position is correct the mount will return back to scope on top of and in line with mount pointing toward Polaris in the northern hemisphere), then in preview tab do what you need to as described above.

[iantaylor2uk]

Once you've got the scope focussed and the mount polar aligned, return to home position, then select a bright star like Vega or similar. Once the ASIAIR confirms it is in the centre of view, just then select the moon to slew to, and it should be in the centre of the field of view. The ASIAIR plate solve won't work when the moon is in the field of view as it overwhelms any stars that may also be in the image.