Mesu 200 Meridian Flip

Voyager Equipment Setup & Compatibility
#1

Hello,

I just got a Mesu 200 MKII mount that I will be installing in a remote observatory with Voyager. I tested the system last night and it performed very well. The only thing I could not manage to do is to dial in the Meridian Flip configuration. I have been using Voyager for a few months now and had no issue at all with both a CEM 60 and a MyT. So I guess it has to do with the Sitech Ascom driver.

What I observe is that, whenever the time for a Meridian flip comes, the mount does not respond to the slew commands.

I had tried this also indoor with the same result.

I wonder if there is any Voyager user who is using the Mesu 200 who can help me dial in the right configuration.

Thanks in advance,

Jose

#2

Hi Jose,

the first user using with Voyager a Mesu200 have problem for meridian flip, they have changed the ascom driver to fix some issues and all work fine. So be sure to use the last version of ascom driver.

After this setting to respect overall for the mount driver is:

All the best
Leonardo

#3

Thanks a lot Leonardo!! I am using version 0.94N of the ASCOM driver, which is the latest in SiTech´s website. I´m ask the directly if there´s a more recent one.

I think it might also have something to do with the SiTech driver configuration.

Have a nice weekend,

jose

#4

You are welcome Jose.
Let me know, have nice we too.

All the best
Leonardo

#6

Wonderful Jose and thanks for the feedback.

Have fun
Leonardo

#7

Hello Leonardo,

I tested the MF indoors today and it is clearly a limits setup issue. The last version of the ASCOM driver (0.94N) works fine with Voyager as long as the limits setup in SiTechExe allows Voyager to manage the MF.

Here´s the relevant setup screen in SiTechExe:

SiTechExe Meridian Limits
SiTechExe Meridian Limits1424×864 252 KB

I have set the Meridian Limit West (Degs) to 0/-180 and the Meridian Limit East (Degs) to 0/180. So the limits after which the mount should stop tracking are precisely at the meridian. Some people leave some extra margin, but I think that this is not really important, since the key parameter is the Track Past Meridian Overlap (Degrees) . This is the region past the meridian limit where you allow the mount to keep on tracking. More importantly, it is the region where a GoTo will actually produce a MF.

So I set the Track Past Meridian Overlap to a little bit more of my maximum exposure in Voyager. If this value is set to zero then the mount stops tracking at the meridian limit.

Finally I left the GEM Auto Flip GoTo checked.

In such a way the mount will continue tracking the value of Track Past Meridian Overlap degrees past the Meridian Limits (which in my case are set precisely at the meridian) and while in this overlap region it will flip whenever Voyager issues the MF GoTo.

In Voyager all the time setting in the Mount Setup panel and the Session Meridian Flip tab must be within the Track Past Meridian Overlap region.

So ready to do my first full session with this new mount.

Thanks a lot for your help,

Jose

Note: I deleted my previous post since I found out I made a mistake in the Meridian Limits Under the Pole which could result in a pier crash. The signs were inverted.

#8

Thank you Jose

Leonardo