Mosaics with ASIAIR - Help! ZWO ASIair Plus · Itto Ogami · ... · 4 · 181 · 0

Hey everyone. Getting my spacecat51 ready for starfront. just testing the rig and making sure all is working correctly before i send it out. I will be using the ASIAIR plus and a 2600MC. I spoke to a number of people and they state that i dont need a rotator for my camera, that i should just set the orientation at 90 degrees and do mosaics.

My question is this. I'm looking at the mosaicing part of the asiair app and i can see how to create the grid around objects and frame the mosaic, overlap etc, but not sure how the software knows the orientation of the chip. Is It set somewhere in the app? If i orient the camera at 90 degrees and lock it in, how does the mosaicing tool know that?       

if we have the same setup in the same location and your chip is rotated 90 degrees differently from mine, your 4 panel mosaic rotation around the target in the center should show differently in the asiair sky atlas than mine does in the sky atlas. The only way the asiair sky atlas it would know the difference in orientation between the 2 setups is if it was set manually or detected it somehow. Your final image would be rotated around the target diffrently than mine since our chip orientation is different. 

I know if the chip is fixed at 90 degrees it stays fixed to the movement of the mount, but i dont understand how the software knows the degree of rotation of my chip to show me the exact area of the sky the mosaic will cover. if i were to set it at 90 degrees and lock it and do a mosaic of the same target over 2 nights, but the second night i rotated the chip to the 180 degree position and planned a mosaic how does the software know i rotated the camera and display that new orientation in the sky atlas?

 I'm trying to understand how the sky atlas is showing me how the 4 panel mosaic is oriented in relation to the target in the center if it doesnt know the orientation of the chip? If you could set the degree of rotation of the chip somewhere in the software then it could know EXACTLY what the 4 frames i set will cover in the sky EXACTLY and tell me. if the next night i rotate the camera 90 degrees more and plan the same mosaic, each frame should cover a different area than it did the night before. Maybe now the longer edge of the mosaic is up and down instead of left and right in relation to the target in the center. 

I'm pulling my hair out trying to understand how the air detects the chip rotation and changes this in the mosaic tool. I dont intend to rotate the chip at all after setting it to 90 degrees since its remote, but in order to plan a mosaic and know the area of sky covered will be identical to what i see in the sky atlas, there has to be a way the asiair sky atlas knows how the chip is rotated to figure this out.

Im praying someone understands the above. im going crazy lol

Regards,
Itto (Jim)

the real orientation shows in the AA sky atlas only after a platesolve

that's how the AA knows, by doing a platesolve

so, if you change orientation with a manual CAA, the AA does not immediately know; you'll have to take a short exposure or any exposure after, so it can plate solve and update orientation

hope this helps

Itto Ogami:
OMG thank you both. no one seemed to understand what i was saying. it makes sense that it would adjust after a platesolve. does it 

Oscar:
the real orientation shows in the AA sky atlas only after a platesolve

that's how the AA knows, by doing a platesolve

so, if you change orientation with a manual CAA, the AA does not immediately know; you'll have to take a short exposure or any exposure after, so it can plate solve and update orientation

hope this helps

Luca Bartek:
The easiest way is to have the ASIAIR do a plate solve once you install the camera - from the point on it will have the correct orientation in the Atlas view.
If this is not possible, you can figure out the orientation by checking the rotation of your physical sensor compared to the bottom of the telescope (dovetail) as with accurate polar alignment it will never change after that.

OMG thank you both. no one seemed to understand what i was saying. it makes sense that it would adjust after a platesolve. does it remember the orientation after the platesolve on subsequent nights and assume you havent moved the chip from what it remembers? Im not going to rotate it at all,  just curious if it will remember the orientation after the first use and assume it wasnt moved. from what luca says, it seems like it will remember the old oreintation and update only if a platesolve shows thatthe rotation was changed in some way. is this accurate?

there is no need to overthink this

it should not change the last known orientation until the next platesolve, and if the next platesolve shows the image is oriented the same as last time, then the orientation will appear the same

just take a 3s exposure or something before starting the night, if you don't trust the AA

don't worry about it