[Craig_]

Originally Posted by RyanJones

It’s possible that if it is reporting correctly and you are degrees away that it’s confusing the plate solving ? That is a guess though. One of the things that I have had happen to me that confuse ASIair platesolving is if your focus is too far off. It doesn’t have to be heaps either. It can platesolve one minute then refuse to the next. I’d possibly check those two first and see how you go. Another possibly silly one is if you have ambient light nearby. I’ve had plate solving behave erratically when my kitchen light has been on nearby.

Hope this helps

Ryan

Thanks Ryan. Focus should have been fairly close, but possibly the issue as I had not run the AF routine yet (just wracked the focuser out to the approx focus position.) Next clear night I'll check that out.

Originally Posted by JA

Battery or power supply issue perhaps? Also I'm not sure if it's the ASI air that does it, but as you get closer to perfect alignment with the pole the reticle scale changes and could give the appearance of being further from the pole based on the graphical image shown on the screen. The numerical values should however, show improvement.

Still waiting to use my ASI airs some day.

Best
JA

Thanks, I doubt it was a power issue, the symptoms don't match what I'd expect to see from such a problem. The numerical values did change (for the better) for a while whilst correcting but then I did eventually reach a point where they did not improve at all and any further tweaks broke the PS routine.

Originally Posted by Dave882

I agree with Ryan’s suggestions. I’ve been using the ASIAIR PA routine in various mounts for a couple years and never been too far away for it to work (sometimes I’ve been so far in my setup I’ve had to drag the tripod legs and it still followed me ok).

However I will say that platesolving will start to get problematic for me if
1) ASIAIR expects you to be in one particular position and you are a long way from it due to poor GOTO alignment (but this has never bothered the PA platesolves in my experience)
2) the inputted FL is off
3) mount tracking is turned off (happens sometimes if GOTO home)
4) external influence affecting seeing (cloud/light)
5) very long FL and/or small sensor giving small fov

Thanks. For your points:
1) Sharpcap is similar in that if you're too far off where it expects to be it won't PS, I think for that it is 15 degrees from the pole if not mistaken. For non PA platesolving, yes if there is a significant misalignment to where the software thinks the mount is pointing you will get issues unless you blind solve.
2) I checked this, it was correct although ASIAir did keep changing it slightly (eg I input 840, it changed to 861) I assume this was based on the PS results.
3) Tracking isn't active for polar alignment but yes would definitely impact for other PS.
4) It was a very humid/damp night where I was imaging, possibly a factor. No condensation on the objective though.
5) 840mm with a 1" sensor, not too long I'd have thought.