There’s a setting to enable so many minutes past the meridian to carry on imaging, but can we have something that will allow the opposite, to start a pier flip so many minutes before it reaches meridian? This would be very handy especially in my case that I have trees around 30 minutes before the meridian. I would rather start a pier flip 30 minutes before rather than waste time auto centering, focusing etc only for it to go and do it all again 30 minutes later.
In that case, we are not able to convince your mount to flip early (thus the message). Requesting this from the driver’s author is your best course of action here.
Astro-Physics mounts are probably the only one I know of can do what you are asking. I don’t know if A-P mounts can understand negative numbers for number of minutes before Meridian from SGP.
But A-P ASCOM mount driver has a feature called “Meridian Delay” which allows you to start the scope under the mount without SGP knowing about it and uncheck Meridian Flip box in SGP. Sorry that EQMOD or your mount does not offer this feature you are asking but it would definitely work for Astro-Physics mounts. If you bug EQMOD, you may also have to bug the mount manufacturer to change the firmware to understand negative numbers for Meridian Flip from SGP.
A handful of mounts support this. Losmandy, some iOptrons, Takahashis, Celestron (maybe?). There are a decent amount. I can’t recall if AP does. I have a feeling they do though.
I thought EQMOD supported it…maybe a setting in their driver?
No, EQMOD is not designed to work that mode. There is a “self clearing” checkbox on the “axis dial display” that can force a one off flipped flipped goto (i.e to position itself in a counterweights up orientation). But all bets are off when it comes to any accuracy of goto in this mode and this only is intended for manual targeting as in an automated environment any subsequent gotos will not be “flipped”.
The best advice would be to simply start imaging 30 minutes later (or a few days later when you target as passed the meridian and there is no need to flip at all - or just restrict yourself to targets that suite your environment.
While some other mount types may be able to support counterweight-up slews, Astro-Physics mounts using APCC have a unique feature that allows there to be a different meridian flip point for each declination value. This is usually necessary because the end of a telescope might hit the pier at a different hour angle as declination changes. Without this feature the telescope would be limited to some minimum “safe” hour angle flip point that works for every declination, otherwise risking a pier collision.
For example, at Dec = 0 degrees a telescope may pass completely under an Astro-Physics mount with no collision at any hour angle, however at Dec=65 a pier collision might occur at an hour angle only 30 minutes before the meridian simply because of the dimensions of the telescope.
