1. Stefan B Avatar Stefan B
  2. nina
  3. NINA
  4. Issues

NINA Rel 1.10 Will Not Do A Meridian Flip w/ Losmandy Gemini-II Mount

Issue #587 on hold
Jim Waters created an issue

Description
As the title says. Production Rel 1.10 will not do a Meridian Flip on my Losmandy GM811G mount. The problem also occurred with NINA RC 006. This problem was also identified by another user on Discord and discussed with no resolution. This problem was also reported here by Didi_S.

https://groups.io/g/Losmandy_users/topic/meridian_flip_with_n_i_n_a/75474218?p=,,,20,0,0,0::recentpostdate%2Fsticky,,,20,2,0,75474218

SGPro 3.1.0.519 is reported to work correctly. It was too clouds to test SGPro.

I was imaging NGC7000 and clouds were coming in and I wanted to retest with the production release of NINA so I slewed to Vega which was close to the Meridian. NINA went through the sequence, counted down and the GM811G mount motors engaged for a fraction of a second then stopped. The NINA flip sequence then assumed that the mount did a Meridian Flip and continued. It did the same thing with 006.

Auto Meridian Flip

  • Enabled – ON
  • Minutes after meridian – 5
  • Use Telescope Side of Pier – ON
  • Recenter after Flip – ON
  • Scope Settle Time After Flip – 60 sec
  • Pause Before Meridian Flip – 5
  • Auto Focus after Flip – ON

Environment

Question - Where are the ASCOM Log files kept?

Steps to Reproduce
Setup a Losmandy Gemini-II mount close to the Meridian, start tracking and see it if does a Meridian Flip.

Expected Behavior
Does a successful Meridian Flip

Actual Behavior
Does not flip and stops.

Comments (20)

  4. Stefan B repo owner

    Hi Jim,

    for the Meridian Flip, N.I.N.A. just issues a GoTo command to the same coordinates the scope is currently at. The flip itself is handled by the driver. It looks like the driver however does not flip in that scenario.
    How would a flip happen when you do it manually? You track an object past the meridian and while tracking issuing a GoTo when the scope is past the meridian will result in a flip in most mounts… Seems that Gemini assumes a different approach. Do you have more info on that?

  5. Stefan B repo owner

    Ok I did a bit of digging in other forums and apparently the Losmandy Driver expects to be NOT tracking when doing the GoTo for the flip.
    This behavior is unexpected and different to all other drivers so far.

  9. Stanley Dimant

    I’m not aware that ASCOM has any methods to force a flip, I just looked at it and there is none.

  10. Stefan B repo owner

    This is strange. I am not aware of any ASCOM interface for a flip. Can this guy point to the proper interface method on the ASCOM documentation?

  12. Jim Waters reporter

    I did get a reply back from Paul. See the link below.

    https://groups.io/g/Gemini_ASCOM_Driver/topic/nina_rel_1_10_will_not_do_a/75669586?p=,,,20,0,0,0::recentpostdate%2Fsticky,,,20,2,0,75669586

    BTW - The Losmandy Gemini-II HC has a Meridian Flip box you can check to force a flip.

    Its monsoon season here now so I am going to setup inside and play around with different NINA settings. I am also going to try SGPro to see if it works. I have seen posts saying it works and other saying that it doesn't work. I will get back to you.

  14. Paul K

    Hi Stefan,

    Paul here, the author of Gemini.NET ASCOM driver.

    Looking at your code, it should work to cause a meridian flip, except for some conditions where Gemini determines that the object is not accessible from the other side of the pier. Gemini ASCOM driver will throw an exception in this case, which it appears NINA will catch, log as a warning, and then ignore, and proceed to slew to the same coordinates (which normally wouldn’t work to flip the mount with Gemini).

    The possible exceptions thrown by setting SideOfPier:

    • Timeout
    • Object below horizon
    • Position unreachable
    • Manual control

    The last one happens if the user is in the middle of performing some function from the physical hand controller that cannot be interrupted. Can you please check if you see any of these exceptions in the logs?

  15. Jim Waters reporter

    Stefan

    This from Paul.

    --

    Thanks for the log, Jim. It shows that the flip didn't work, but why it didn't remains a mystery. NINA did send the meridian flip command correctly, so we can't blame NINA:

    12:47:34.395 IT:SideOfPier.Set TID:14 [Enter] pierEast

    The ASCOM driver then sent the flip command to Gemini, and Gemini responded that the command (:Mf#) was accepted successfully. 0 means that the flip is possible and will start automatically:

    12:47:34.399 Ethernet received: TID:9 [0]: :Mf#, 0

    But there is no slew reported by Gemini after this reply from Gemini, only tracking all the way until the ASCOM driver gives up waiting 10 seconds later:

    12:47:44.462 WaitForVelocity TID:14 [Exit] S, 10000, T

    I have no explanation as to why the flip didn't occur, since Gemini responded that it received the command and was about to perform the flip. I don't see anything in the log that could've interrupted it, it just never started slewing. Perhaps a good question forThanks for the log, Jim. It shows that the flip didn't work, but why it didn't remains a mystery. NINA did send the meridian flip command correctly, so we can't blame NINA:

    12:47:34.395 IT:SideOfPier.Set         TID:14 [Enter] pierEast

    The ASCOM driver then sent the flip command to Gemini, and Gemini responded that the command (:Mf#) was accepted successfully. 0 means that the flip is possible and will start automatically:

    12:47:34.399 Ethernet received:        TID:9 [0]: :Mf#, 0

    But there is no slew reported by Gemini after this reply from Gemini, only tracking all the way until the ASCOM driver gives up waiting 10 seconds later:

    12:47:44.462 WaitForVelocity           TID:14 [Exit] S, 10000, T

    I have no explanation as to why the flip didn't occur, since Gemini responded that it received the command and was about to perform the flip. I don't see anything in the log that could've interrupted it, it just never started slewing. Perhaps a good question for René Goerlich, as I've never seen this behavior before., as I've never seen this behavior before.

    --

    I am considering this a Losmandy / Gemini-II problem now. There are many posts about Gemini-II flip issues with SGPro and some with NINA. I will follow up with René Goerlich.

    If I get this problem figured out I will get back to you with an update. Thanks for your time.

  17. Jim Waters reporter

    Stefan – It looks like this problem has been resolved or at least understood. It took updating the Gemini-II Telescope.Net driver from 1.0.72 to 1.0.75 and very careful alignment of the mounts Safety Limits to N.I.N.A.’s Meridian Flip settings. For my mount the ‘Use Telescope Side of Pier' must be ON and ‘Pause Before Meridian’ must be greater than 0. Because of the monsoons I did testing during the day. I plan to do additional testing to further characterize what does and doesn’t work. I will post my finding on the Losmandy Groups.IO forum.

    If others post problems getting a Gemini-2 mount to do a Meridian Flip feel free to send them my way. I appreciate the time you spent on this problem. Thanks

  18. Stefan B repo owner

    Great that this could be resolved. We can also put up a section into our documentation on how to set up the gemini stuff once you have it all figured out.

  19. Peter boreland

    I can concur that NINA does not perform a flip. Also it seems Gemini does not accept J2000 coordinates even if that option is selected. Moreover, Gemini does not performed a flip even through the Geminin PC controller. Gemini has some serious problems I think. But, in the testing I’ve done I learned this. If say the western limit is 120 degrees, you should set the western goto limit at 20 degrees. 120 - 20 = 90 so at the maridian when the flip should occur it will not, unless you hit “ slew” I.e. Issue a GOTO command the flip happens! What I’ve also realized is the flip might only take place when the sequencer is running? That is while imaging?

    What I would suggest is not to send a flip command as their own controller does not seem to respond to it. Rather send a goto command?

    I will look carefully at Jim's fine tuned settings and make sure I have the latest version of Gemini and retest.

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Assignee
–
Type
bug
Priority
major
Status
on hold
Component
Business Logic
Version
1.10
Votes
0
Watchers
1
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