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ASI Air problems when pointing due north, but not when point ing due south.

ZWO ASIAIR ZWO ASIAIR Plus GoTo Troubleshooting
8 replies•585 views
Jens avatar
Jens avatar
So I have my Telescope setup on my balcony. I can see about half of the nightsky from east to west. 
yesterday I took the whole setup, without dissasembling it, down to a different spot to photograph the heart nebula.
I did the whole polar aligning routine like I always do and did everything the same as always.
it seemed like the asi air was really confused when I tried pointing at the heart nebula.
whenever I told it to go to the target, it went into the complete wrong direction, sometimes it got really close, it needed to correct a little and went into
the opposite direction of where it was supposed to go. Sometimes I had to watch out that it didn't run into the Tripod. 

after an hour of trying I took my setup back to my balcony, set it up as usual. It just went flawlessly. Instantly went to the right spot in the sky.

I have no idea why there's a problem pointing north but no issue at all pointing south with the exact same rig.
Johannes Maximilian Möslein avatar
Johannes Maximilian Möslein avatar
Whenever I had this problem, it was because I turned the mount on when it was not in home position. Turning the power off, manually moving the scope to Home, and then power on, it worked fine afterwards.
Well Written Helpful Concise
Patrick Graham avatar
Patrick Graham avatar
I agree…….before finishing up for the night, always return the mount to the home position before shutting it down.  I use the ZWO AM-5 mount with the ASI Air Plus and that is their recommendation.  Also, make sure you have your location and time entered correctly and as accurately as possible.

CS

Patrick
Jens avatar
Jens avatar
that's weird, as I can recal it was in the home position but I'll try that next time. I hope that works. 
thank you guys
Christian Bennich avatar
Christian Bennich avatar
I saw similar issues at one point, and solved it by resetting my scope to home position as well. 
After every session I have then finished with going back to the home position and never had the issue again.
Supportive
Jens avatar
Jens avatar
That sounds really promissing. I don't go to the homeposition after I'm finished. so that might cause the issue
Mickaelle (kaelig) avatar
Mickaelle (kaelig) avatar
When you make a plan session with Asiair, in the plan parameters, you could set the "go back home position" at the end of the session. I have also meet this issue with my last mount CGEMii. 

Hence, now, my first action with asiair is set home position and after, I make the focus automatic & the polar alignment.
SouthWestAstro avatar
SouthWestAstro avatar
Before I got the AM5 I had first a CGEM II and then an AVX. It required more care to use these mounts with the ASIAIR. I got into the habit of returning the mount to the home position between targets and at the end of a session. I still do that with the AM5 mostly out of habit.
Well Written
Dan Kearl avatar
Dan Kearl avatar
I have similar problems with the asiair and both my EQM-35 and EQ6 mounts at times. They just go whack after I polar align for no reason I know of.
I just turn off, put mount back to home manually, turn on Asiair and it works flawlessly.
I assume its because it is a $300 dollar computer that has quirks.