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Hom many people use auto meridian flip?

Equipment Meridian Flip
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Andy Wray avatar
Andy Wray avatar
I've used auto meridian flip in NINA for my last couple of sessions.  It has worked quite well with the slew and centre after flip option selected.

How many of you out there trust NINA to flip the scope whilst you are asleep?
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Ed Litoborski avatar
Ed Litoborski avatar
Every night, while I sleep usually,  but I use the asiair pro, never had a issue
kuechlew avatar
kuechlew avatar
Manual meridian flip is one of the biggest nuisances with my tracker setup so far and the potential of an automated meridian flip is one of my main motivations to aim for a real mount - besides the additional payload options. For sure I'll watch closely what NINA is doing the first times I'll use this feature, but I have a lot of trust in this software.

Clear skies
Wolfgang
AstroDarkSky avatar
AstroDarkSky avatar
I trust it every night. The only problem I've had was after installing a new mount driver that wiped out meridian limit settings back to zero which can cause a problem if you dont let it go a bit past meridian for some drivers I think, and once when I used Green Swamp Server as an experiment and I obviously messed something up setting wise in it. Went back to EQMOD after that and I sleep soundly without worrying about a crash. I have also had zero issues with flips on iOptron Commander driving the mount.

I set minutes after meridian to 5 and max minutes after meridian to 5 as well but 2 and 2 works for me too. I never change the default pause before meridian to anything other than the default 0.

It takes time to build trust in it though. smile I used to spend months setting an alarm to go check it outside. Stage 2 - I'd set up outside cameras and watch it on camera. Stage 3- I remote connect to outside computer and just watch the dialog prompts in NINA and don't bother going outside. Now, I just sleep smile
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Prashant Ranganath avatar
Prashant Ranganath avatar
I’ve been using NINAs meridian flip since 2020. I have had 0 issues. My gear now sits 600 miles away from me in a remote observatory in west Texas. I have had 0 issues there too. I sleep through all imaging sessions with 0 preoccupations.
Michael avatar
Michael avatar
I use it in NINA and I have yet to see it fail thus far. 👍

Set an alarm just to be sure the first few nights but have not since lol
Stefan Böckler avatar
Stefan Böckler avatar
I used to sleep quite well during the automated meridian flip by NINA until once the mount lost connection to the PC. NINA doesn't automatically try to reconnect and thus the scope was pushed against one of the tripod legs for hours. Surprisingly, gear still works fine (pointing, tracking, guiding, etc.). But since then I supervise the flip again ;-)

Regards
Stefan
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Ricardo Pereira avatar
Ricardo Pereira avatar
I've been using it with SGP since 2017. Set it, go to bed. In the long nights of winter, more than once per night.
robonrome avatar
robonrome avatar
always.
Simon Pepper avatar
Simon Pepper avatar
Same as a few above I use the AAP to do an auto meridian flip. Some times I set my alarm to ensure it works, some times I don’t and other targets at a really tricky altitude such as the iris nebula for me atm and my setup will hit the mount before the meridian. AAP has a feature to stop tracking as long before as you like so I have been setting it 20 mins on that target. So far touch would it’s never failed.