HI,

I hope no one will consider this a nuisance - I'm an ASI air user who has recently taken up trying to use EKOS because I will be acquiring gear that is not from ZWO and I'm a Mac user. My current issues involve polar alignment using the stellarmate iOS app and slew to target function on EKOS. I am using an EXOS 2 mount with a Nikon dslr camera equipped with an 135mm f/2.8 lens for these tests.

1. When polar aligning I was having a lot of difficulty when using the stellarmate app - after the initial 30 degree rotation it wouldn't be able to solve the second capture. When I tried to use EKOS, after installing the recommended indexes, it worked great. Strangely enough it then started working correctly in the stellarmate app but the issue I'm having is that I get two concentric circles one very big and one much smaller and a tiny vector triangle that I can't zoom into very much. If I understood the tutorial correctly I should be able to select a star to place on the vector triangle but it doesn't seem like I can select a star and I can't move the triangle to a star by tapping. I've been using the ALT/AZ values on the left side but that has been a bit cumbersome - What am I missing? I have been able to get within 30 arcseconds but only just barely. In the ASI air can usually get 5-10 arcseconds.

2. Once I polar align. I normally manually set it back to the home position which is basically pointing at Polaris. The rest is done on EKOS. I capture and sync first - that is usually successful (the ASI air usually doesn't like to plate solve near Polaris for some reason). I can see the field of view of my camera on Kstars. When I target Polaris so that it's in the center of my FOV I first target in Kstars and the use the GOTO option. It should only slew slightly but it does a whole crazy rotation that makes it knock into the mount. When I use any other target I again capture and sync to the mount then target and GOTO in kstars, which incorrectly shows it slewing to the target when in fact its is no where near it. I then use the capture with the slew to target option in EKOS but it can't solve and fails. I suppose because it's not where it thinks it is.

Thank you in advance for your time in helping me understand this.

All best,
Eli

Hello Eli,

1. Check "Plate-solve" in the App and then you wouldn't have to worry about selecting any stars. If you have enough stars in your image, then just look at the numbers on the left side and try to minimize them. This is the quickest way.
2. Never sync or plate solve near the poles. Always select a target 20-30 degrees away to issue a GOTO, and then run plate-solving there. Typically, just slew to your desired target for the night, and then plate-solve.

Hi Eli,

Stay away from the north!

Everyone makes that mistake in the beginning.
Even though it seems like a good place intuitively, but everything around Polaris is just about the hardest place to align & solve.

By manually setting back to home position do you mean you release the clutches and rotate it back by hand? If so you don’t want/need to do that as there’s a tick box somewhere that parks the mount at the end of the polar alignment process which basically does that. You can also tell it to park in the mount control tab. Both methods will move it back home. All you need to do then is unpark (in the mount control tab) and tell it where you want to target, then once it’s stopped rotating use the alignment process to refine your pointing.

PS if you don’t unpark things just don’t appear to work which can be quite confusing.

Thank you for all the input and helpful suggestions. I’m eagerly waiting for the next clear night when I can give this another go.

Thank you!
Eli