I’m working in daylight trying to make sure I have everything setup to do auto meridian flips but it keeps telling me the sequence requires a plate solver even when I don’t have auto-center turned on after flip. Of course when I do turn on plate solving it won’t solve because I’m doing this during the day. What am I missing that I can’t test this?
Thank you,
Chris
It won’t work because this is a plate solve sequence of events. It isn’t just a command telling the mount to flip.
yea - the idea is that the only way SGP can know with absolute certainty where the telescope is pointed (and thus know for sure where to slew to after the flip) is to platesolve.
imo most people who are serious about AP end up making targets with coordinates in them, effectively doing the framing offline, so SGP should always know where to point the mount. but there exists the use case where you manually point/frame and then start a sequence, and it’s in that situation where SGP needs to know where to slew to after a flip. the coordinates are not necessarily stored anywhere, and due to polar alignment error, cone error, etc. even the mount’s reported position may not accurately reflect what the telescope is pointing at. and then for simplicity, even when running a target with coordinates specified, SGP goes thru the same code path as if it did not have the coordinates, because the end result is the same - the telescope ends up pointed in the right place after the flip.
i believe they removed this pre-flip solve in one version of SGP but found that removing it caused other problems with the code, so they put it back.
so i guess this is a long way of saying that there’s a reason why platesolving is necessary to accomplish a meridian flip in SGP 
You can certainly do meridian flips without plate solving in SGP. Just uncheck the option for it.
The OP’s issue is likely that some other option that requires a plate solver is set. SGP doesn’t know if you accidentally unchecked the plate solver or if you accidentally set a bunch of options without selecting a plate solver. It should be telling you what options are set though so you can find them and disable them.
Thanks,
Jared
OK sorry for the noise.
Jared,
Can you help me identify where that setting might be, please?
In Control Panel - Telescope, I have auto-meridian flip enabled. In the settings for this I have “auto center after meridian flip” disabled, and minutes past meridian set to 5.
In Control Panel - Plate solve, I selected “none”.
In Target settings, I have unchecked both “slew to” and “center on”.
I use EQMOD and have the RA and DEC limits about 30 minutes past the meridian, with “enable limits” enabled, but “Allow Auto Meridian Flip” is disabled in EQMOD ASCOM Setup (per instructions).
Thank you,
Chris
The dialog should tell you what setting is causing the issue. Can you take a screen shot or attach your sequence?
Thanks,
Jared
Jared,
It will be a few weeks before I get up to my observatory again, but I will provide the info once I do.
Regarding the dialog, I will get the verbiage wrong, but when I click run for the sequence, it says something to the effect of, “This sequence requires a plate solver.”
Thank you,
Chris
Jared,
Attached is the sequence I ran last night. It did not initiate a meridian flip. I have my ASCOM limits about 30 minutes past the meridian.
Please advise.
Thank you,
Chris
Pacman.zip (8.9 KB)
Do you happen to have the log that went along with the run that did not flip? Everything seems to be setup correctly for a flip to initiate. However it will require a plate solver with how you have it setup and the “Auto Center” option in the meridian settings.
Thanks,
Jared