Failed AMF with CEM 60 and SGP

I know there have been threads about the iOptron CEM 60 and a failed AMF. I read them and it seemed that it was an iOptron driver issue which was fixed a couple of years ago. At any rate, I have the latest iOptron driver (just bought the mount), the latest version of ASCOM and am using the SGP 3.0 beta (although it was doing the same with older versions).

From the log file, the AMF fails a little after 21:39. I believe it then must run end of sequence options and park the scope. From the pics in the dropbox link you can see that I have the meridian behavior in the iOptron driver set to flip at zero degrees past the meridian (image 3) and SGP set to flip at 4 minutes past the meridian (image 5). Also it seems that there might be an issue that SGP is conflicted from what side of the pier the scope is reporting (somewhere in the log I think around the same time frame).

I have set the reverse setting in the iOptron driver and SGP, i.e. set SGP to zero minutes and some other positive number in the iOptron driver. Didn’t change anything.

So after the failed AMF, I unparked the scope and slewed to Deneb using Starry Night. I am imaging a mosaic created in SGP of NGC 7000. No problem, the mount slews to the correct spot with the scope on the east side as it should be. I then go into “target settings” in SGP and hit Center Now. This causes the mount to switch to the other side of the meridian. Maybe because it is so close, but it is indeed past the meridian. This is seen in Starry Night and evident that SGP did attempt an AMF previously which failed.

So I wait a few more minutes and slew back to Deneb and then attempt to center. It works. I then resume the sequence and get the recovery mode abort screen (image 17). I abort this and I think it gives me an End of Sequence option message which I dismiss. I hit run sequence again and it starts working as it should. The only caveat here is PHD2 needs to recalibrated manually (image 13). It seem the RA data is not being handled properly. I do not have the “reverse DEC output after meridian flip” box checked in PHD2. I do not have anything set in SGP about adjusting the calibration data in SGP either.

After all this is done, SGP resumes and completes the various panels meaning that it platesolves and everything is now working fine. At completion SGP successfully parks the scope.

So frustrated. Hopefully just a simple setting I am missing.

To sum it up, the AMF is failing and PHD doesn’t seem to autoguide correctly after the flip.

Thanks for any help.

Here is a dropbox link the the log file and i mages.

I looked at the meridian flip in the log and the mount is reporting that slew completed 2-3 seconds after it started and the reason it fails is because the mount is still on the same side of pier, which is the same as the starting side. When I was using a CEM60 I had to put in a mount settling time of 60 sec into SGP. That way, SGP won’t even look at side of pier until it’s on the other side. The problem is not that the mount is reporting side of pier incorrectly, that got fixed. It’s that it incorrectly reports that the slew is complete when it is still moving. I don’t know if that ever got fixed.

I know you have the newest version of the iOptron Commander (driver) but make sure the mount has the newest firmware as well. Some of the fixes required firmware updates. If you have the iOptron driver set to flip before SGP you may also get a flip at an unwanted time. The flip time in the driver should be after the SGP flip just as a backup to prevent a pier strike.

With my CEM60, PHD2 knew the mount had flipped and adjusted calibration as needed after a meridian flip. Maybe it’s failing because you are doing it manually? I don’t know the solution to this. But I think if you put in a 60s mount settling time, the flip will be successful. It will make your plate solves take longer but I there really isn’t any way around it that I know of.

Chris

Here’s the portion of the log:

[09/26/17 21:39:22.036][DEBUG] [Pier Flip Thread] Meridian Flip: Sending Telescope command to execute meridian flip
[09/26/17 21:39:22.038][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] ASCOM Telescope: Pier side is West
[09/26/17 21:39:22.038][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] ASCOM Telescope: attempting pier flip using slew
[09/26/17 21:39:22.043][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Slewing to J2000 RA: 21.0898929658653 (21h05m23.61s) Dec: 45.6481716509163 (45°38’53.42")
[09/26/17 21:39:22.043][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Slew received J2000 coordinates, mount requires JNOW, converting…
[09/26/17 21:39:22.043][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Slewing to JNOW RA: 21.1006833333333 Dec: 45.7245055555556
[09/26/17 21:39:24.477][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Scope reports it is done with synchronous slew, verifying…
[09/26/17 21:39:24.477][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Slewing has completed
[09/26/17 21:39:24.977][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] ASCOM Telescope: Failed to flip because starting pier side and ending pier side are the same!
[09/26/17 21:39:25.016][DEBUG] [Pier Flip Thread] Meridian Flip: Telescope command to meridian flip has completed
[09/26/17 21:39:25.016][DEBUG] [Pier Flip Thread] Meridian Flip: Telescope failed to perform meridian flip
[09/26/17 21:39:54.516][DEBUG] [Pier Flip Thread] Meridian Flip: Procedure complete

I had issues with the automatic meridian flip and had to set the mount’s flip settings to 1 degree past meridian. That way, the mount and SGP were not in conflict about when and which one would perform the flip. Doing it this way, SGP will initiate the flip first and therefore the mount will not get involved. This seemed to be a reasonable workaround. Not sure if this is similar to your issue but thought I would share.

Ciao,
Mel

Hopefully I will try it again tonight. I thought I had the mount to flip in SGP before the setting in the iOptron ASCOM driver. I also thought I had the mount settling time set to a positive value. I assume if I put in a value of 60 seconds that will slow down any platesolve as you would need to wait 60 seconds before it takes a picture on every centering process? The reason for putting a value in here is there seems to be an issue that the mount flips (slews) but tries autocentering before the slew has completed? Not sure if that is the case why that wouldn’t be addressed in SGP or the driver?

Still can’t figure out why PHD2 can’t automatically reverse what is need on the calibration when it flips side.

Well I got it to work. I had SGP set to flip 5 minutes (time) past the meridian and the iOptron driver set to flip after SGP (maybe 5 degrees past). It seems the bigger issue is the mount settling time. I set it to 75 seconds. I guess that gives the mount and SGP time to make sure the slew is complete before autocentering. The drag about this is that it SLOWS down all the autocentering that is done regardless of whether a flip is being done. It sure would be nice to have a separate setting for settling times pertaining to a meridian flip that doesn’t delay platesolving/centering when you are just going from one target/panel of a mosaic to the next one.

PHD2 also worked. Not sure what the deal is there. I tried PHD2 without SGP earlier. Calibrated on one side of the meridian. Then went to the other side and started guiding and the RA guiding wouldn’t work. Not sure what the issue is there.

Lastly, after the successful auto meridian flip, I wanted to manually adjust focus after acquiring a few frames. So I paused the sequence and slewed to Deneb (target is NGC 7000). Then after focusing I hit autocenter and resumed the sequence. That brought up the abort screen which I canceled and then end of sequence options which I dismissed. Then hit resume sequence again and it continued. Not sure what is going on there but maybe a bug?

Glad you got it working. A 75 second mount settling time makes no sense! Settling should be for AFTER the mount stops moving, no while it’s moving. I would only want settling time to be no more than 10 seconds. Something doesn’t sound right about having to set a 75 second mount settling time. I would continue enquiring about that! Good luck.

Ciao,
Mel

Does this mean that the mount reports that the slew has finished while it is still moving and the ‘settling’ delay is actually to allow the slew to complete?

If so that looks like a badly broken mount.

I’m not sure what this means. I haven’t noticed this as a problem using my CEM60-EC with SGP.

Don’t know why settling time would impact things. Just followed Chris’s advice above. Not sure how much “settling” the mount needs. Someone else said to put in a positive value for settling time. But it does seem like this is either an iOptron driver issue or maybe there is a better workaround/bug in SGP. I don’t understand why the autocenter process would start and fail after a flip if the slew wasn’t finished.

Ken or Jared?

Thanks for the help.

AIUI at pier flip time SGP sends a slew command, waits for the mount to report that the slew has finished, then checks the pier side. If the slew completes correctly then the new pier flip state is correct.

But if the mount reports that the slew has finished early, before the mount has stopped moving or crossed to the other side, then the pier side will be reported incorrectly and SGP will report errors. Finding out if this is the case will need more detail of what is going on than the SGP log provides.

DriverAccess or mount logs may help but ultimately it may require looking at what the mount is actually doing and correlating that with what it reports that it is doing.

It’s difficult to do this without physical access to the mount.