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I uploaded a new version of the spreadsheet "Edward-Gemini-NINA.xlsx"
This includes suggestion to enable "Report Pier Side" and "Flip using Goto" per a recent thread on the Gemini group.
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Edward
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Can you provide a link to this spreadsheet - I don't know where it is. Thanks. Mike
On Fri, Feb 16, 2024 at 10:19?PM Edward Plumer < eplumer@...> wrote:
I uploaded a new version of the spreadsheet "Edward-Gemini-NINA.xlsx"
This includes suggestion to enable "Report Pier Side" and "Flip using Goto" per a recent thread on the Gemini group.
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Edward
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Its in the “Files” section of this group. Seach for the name since it is a few pages down. The accompanying power point slides (separate file, similar name) gives explanation of how it works
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Edward
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Your spreadsheet - and the LM video w Brian - has been a great help to me a couple of times, Edward. Thank you for the update on those settings.
Geoff
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Hi Edward, this is just what I've been looking for, I've been having a really hard time trying to config my G11 to do automated flips with NINA. I have 2 questions though, do you know if this works well with Gemini 1 as well? And also, I'm in the southern hemisphere, are there any considerations I should take into account? I read in the manual that eastern and western limits should be swapped when using the mount in the southern hemisphere, and actually due to the RA motor positioning my western limit is the "shorter" one before the setup will crash into the pier. Gemini also seems to report reversed sides of pier always, at least that's what I see in NINA: NINA will say the telescope is WEST of the pier but my telescope will be on the east. This I believe is because of me being in the southern hemisphere, because if I were to turn my mount 180 degrees in azimuth to face north, the reported side of pier would actually be correct. One would think that it would be an easy thing for Gemini to report the inverted side when your latitude is set south of the equator but this does not seem to be the case, so I wonder if there's anything I should take into account due to this. My issue with flips is that NINA will actually initiate the flip command with the legacy sequencer, but it will get stuck in an endless loop of requesting flips, once the flip is complete. Gemini will not perform another flip, but NINA will keep requesting them.
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I feel your?pain, Franco. I am also in the southern hemisphere, using Gemini-1 and N.I.N.A.
I'm having EXACTLY the same problem :( So I am watching?this thread with great interest !! -- Thanks and Best Regards Neil
On Sun, Mar 16, 2025 at 6:05?AM Franco Meconi via <francomeconi= [email protected]> wrote: Hi Edward, this is just what I've been looking for, I've been having a really hard time trying to config my G11 to do automated flips with NINA. I have 2 questions though, do you know if this works well with Gemini 1 as well? And also, I'm in the southern hemisphere, are there any considerations I should take into account? I read in the manual that eastern and western limits should be swapped when using the mount in the southern hemisphere, and actually due to the RA motor positioning my western limit is the "shorter" one before the setup will crash into the pier. Gemini also seems to report reversed sides of pier always, at least that's what I see in NINA: NINA will say the telescope is WEST of the pier but my telescope will be on the east. This I believe is because of me being in the southern hemisphere, because if I were to turn my mount 180 degrees in azimuth to face north, the reported side of pier would actually be correct. One would think that it would be an easy thing for Gemini to report the inverted side when your latitude is set south of the equator but this does not seem to be the case, so I wonder if there's anything I should take into account due to this. My issue with flips is that NINA will actually initiate the flip command with the legacy sequencer, but it will get stuck in an endless loop of requesting flips, once the flip is complete. Gemini will not perform another flip, but NINA will keep requesting them.
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Hi Neil, well the update is that I tried using the info on this spreadsheet and I think I finally solved the issues with the flip. The ONLY thing I changed from what's suggested on this spreadsheet is that I switched OFF the "use side of pier" option in NINA, because flips were not reliable when I had this on. Once I switched it off I spent an entire afternoon making flips with my observatory roof closed and they all worked perfectly. However, right after that I started having a new issue which is that when I'm trying to do an imaging session the mount won't slew to a lot of objects, especially around the SCP. So I believe my settings might need some additional tweaking. Here's a couple of screenshots of my settings which seemed to work.
?
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What issues are you dealing with exactly??
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Franco,
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I do not have a Gemini-1 nor experience in southern hemisphere so I cannot confirm. I would be glad to add notes to spreadsheet based on experimental findings of the group.
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Have others used the spreadsheet as-is in southern hemisphere on Gemini-2? I would have expected the East and West limits to work the same, only physical direction of rotation of RA axis to change.?
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Edward
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Thank you Edward. I'm still running tests so I will keep the thread updated as soon as I get any significant results. I believe east and west limits do work the same but things are a big complicated due to the physical limitations of having the RA motor on the west side for us southeners which really limits the mount movement on that side, making margins really tight. Also, what I find a bit confusing is that I noticed most posts and recommendations are to set the western go-to limit as a number which lies somewhere near 1 and say 10-15 degrees, depending on the movement margin you have on your mount, however the actual gemini 1 manual suggests values over 90 degrees, suggesting that this setting counts degrees from counter weight down position, and not backwards from the western limit? I'll do some tests using this setting (total angle from CWD) for go to limit and post results here.
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To recap, using the suggested settings that come from your spreadsheet (for my particular limits of 95 degrees west and 114 degrees east) of 4.5 degrees western goto limit worked perfectly in achieving reliable meridian flips as long as I switched "use side of pier" OFF in NINA. However, using these restrictive settings resulted in the mount refusing to do go-tos to lots of parts in the sky, particularly around the South Celestial Pole, when trying to run an imaging session, which is somewhat inconvenient. My next test will be keeping my limits settings but changing the western go-to limit to what is suggested in the Gemini 1 manual, which is a value over 90 degrees (I'm setting it to 94 degrees, one less than my western limit). I'll post my results after tonight.
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Hi Franco
This is where I left off on my latest?attempt. I decided to temporarily take N.I.N.A out of the equation?in an effort to rule it in/out. Based on this, I'm wondering if it might be a combination of Gemini-1 and ASCOM as N.I.N.A always seems to think that the mount is on the side of the pier that ASCOM is reporting.
I have a Losmandy G11 running Gemini-1 and ASCOM v7.0.2I'm using the ASCOM Gemini telescope driver version 1.1.28.0 dated Monday 9th September 2024If I look in the ASCOM Profile Explorer, the "ASCOM.GeminiTelescope.Telescope" driver has the ReportPierSide setting = TrueSlewing the scope via the Gemini software shows the pierside correctly on both sides of the pier.In the ASCOM device hub, when the mount is parked, it shows "Side of pier = West " (1)
I unpark the scope, slew to the west and the ASCOM device hub and Gemini agree (2)
I slew to the east and the ASCOM device hub and Gemini?disagree. ASCOM device hub thinks it in the west (Incorrect), and Gemini thinks it is in the east (correct).(3)
What settings do you have for reporting pierside in Gemini?
I will crank it all up later today and duplicate your settings (minus the safety?limits, obviously) and see what occurs. -- Thanks and Best Regards Neil
On Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 1:35?AM Franco Meconi via <francomeconi= [email protected]> wrote: Hi Neil, well the update is that I tried using the info on this spreadsheet and I think I finally solved the issues with the flip. The ONLY thing I changed from what's suggested on this spreadsheet is that I switched OFF the "use side of pier" option in NINA, because flips were not reliable when I had this on. Once I switched it off I spent an entire afternoon making flips with my observatory roof closed and they all worked perfectly. However, right after that I started having a new issue which is that when I'm trying to do an imaging session the mount won't slew to a lot of objects, especially around the SCP. So I believe my settings might need some additional tweaking. Here's a couple of screenshots of my settings which seemed to work.
?
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What issues are you dealing with exactly??
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Hey everyone, just circling back to this post to share my results. After a couple of nights of testing, it appears like I have finally found settings that work well with my setup. I'm sharing a couple of screenshots of my settings below. What I believe is the main thing that I was seeing in lots of tutorials that was complicating things for me was the "western goto limit" setting. I'd seen in many posts and tutorials that this setting was counted backwards from the western limit of the mount, so in most cases it would lie somewhere between maybe 2 and 8-10 degrees. However, the losmandy gemini 1 manual states that this setting is counted from the CWD position, so it should be a value over 90 degrees (just past the meridian). I actually set it at 90 degrees because my western limit is very low due to being in the southern hemisphere and my RA motor is in the western side. So this setting I believe is that the mount will perform a flip when a go-to command is received at any position after 90 degrees from CWD (so right on the meridian). I also experienced the problem in NINA that NINA interprets the wrong side of pier (opposite of what it really is, which I suspect is another problem due to being located in the southern hemisphere). I tried disabling Gemini reporting the side of pier altogether but that brought on a different set of problems with PHD2 and guiding, so I reccomend leaving this setting on but disabling it only in NINA for flips.
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In NINA, my "Minutes after meridian and "Max Minutes After Meridian" setting was actually determined using Edward's spreadsheet, which was very helpful to start narrowing down where possible problems could be. In any case, flips are very reliable now, the only problem is that my margins are really tight due to the physical configuration of my setup which allows for a very small range of motion past the meridian on the western side. Hopefully I can change this in the near future. For now, however, for my 2 or 3 minute long exposures, these settings work fine.
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I'll also add that meridian flips also worked fine when using those low values for the "western goto limit" (I had 4.5 in there, see my previous messages with screengrabs) but this setting caused the mount to fail to go-to fairly large portions of the sky, particularly around the SCP. As soon as I changed the western goto limit to 90, the mount started slewing to every object I chose without restrictions.
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Anyways, that's my experience setting up the G11 with Gemini 1 with NINA for fully automated go-tos and reliable meridian flips in the southern hemisphere.?
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Where are you located.?Franco? -- Thanks and Best Regards Neil
On Fri, Mar 21, 2025 at 7:54?AM Franco Meconi via <francomeconi= [email protected]> wrote: Hey everyone, just circling back to this post to share my results. After a couple of nights of testing, it appears like I have finally found settings that work well with my setup. I'm sharing a couple of screenshots of my settings below. What I believe is the main thing that I was seeing in lots of tutorials that was complicating things for me was the "western goto limit" setting. I'd seen in many posts and tutorials that this setting was counted backwards from the western limit of the mount, so in most cases it would lie somewhere between maybe 2 and 8-10 degrees. However, the losmandy gemini 1 manual states that this setting is counted from the CWD position, so it should be a value over 90 degrees (just past the meridian). I actually set it at 90 degrees because my western limit is very low due to being in the southern hemisphere and my RA motor is in the western side. So this setting I believe is that the mount will perform a flip when a go-to command is received at any position after 90 degrees from CWD (so right on the meridian). I also experienced the problem in NINA that NINA interprets the wrong side of pier (opposite of what it really is, which I suspect is another problem due to being located in the southern hemisphere). I tried disabling Gemini reporting the side of pier altogether but that brought on a different set of problems with PHD2 and guiding, so I reccomend leaving this setting on but disabling it only in NINA for flips.
?
In NINA, my "Minutes after meridian and "Max Minutes After Meridian" setting was actually determined using Edward's spreadsheet, which was very helpful to start narrowing down where possible problems could be. In any case, flips are very reliable now, the only problem is that my margins are really tight due to the physical configuration of my setup which allows for a very small range of motion past the meridian on the western side. Hopefully I can change this in the near future. For now, however, for my 2 or 3 minute long exposures, these settings work fine.
?
I'll also add that meridian flips also worked fine when using those low values for the "western goto limit" (I had 4.5 in there, see my previous messages with screengrabs) but this setting caused the mount to fail to go-to fairly large portions of the sky, particularly around the SCP. As soon as I changed the western goto limit to 90, the mount started slewing to every object I chose without restrictions.
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Anyways, that's my experience setting up the G11 with Gemini 1 with NINA for fully automated go-tos and reliable meridian flips in the southern hemisphere.?
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in Gemini-2, WGL is definitely counted backward in deg/min from WSL. Gemini-1 has a different definition it seems. Can any other Gemini-1 Users confirm?
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Was that only spreadsheet discrepancy you found , Franco?
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Edward
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Edward Plumer
Paul Kanevsky