ZWO AM5 Tips
August 18, 2022
1. The ASI Mount mobile app is a tool you should explore - I installed the ASI Mount app on my iPhone a week before the mount arrived (yeah, I was a bit excited). ZWO provides the application tools you need to configure your AM5 and keep its internal software (firmware) up to date. Use the ASI Mount app on your iPhone, iPad, Android phone, or tablet to set or adjust the AM5's home position and other settings. The app is built around a beautiful night sky observation view with full search functions, using your location to show what’s above you at the moment. Seriously, take a few minutes to check out the sky in the ASI Mount app, zoom in, find your favorite deep sky targets. A really impressive amount of design and engineering went into this. To use the app, plug in the hand controller, connect to the AM5’s wifi hotspot, named AMH_xxxx where xxxx will be an ID or random number for your mount. Links: Android (Google Play: https://bit.ly/3T29A5l), iPhone, iPad (https://apple.co/3dFhn8W)
2. Two words: cable management - watch your loose cables on the AM5. This is a very compact and powerful mount—always keep the power of this mount in mind. There are no clutches to slip. The gearing is always engaged, and if you snag your camera’s USB and power cables on the altitude adjustment knob, the mount can easily pull those out. If you don’t have fancy cable clips, I always recommend picking up a roll of 1 inch wide gaffer tape—I mean the more expensive cloth stuff that will hold things down but won't leave any residue. Get the real thing, not the cheap stuff. I use gaffer tape to hold cables together, to tape cables to the mount or the side of a camera. It's as permanent as you want it to be, holding whatever you need to hold until it's time to tear down your gear. Then it just peels away, and you can reuse it. There are many sources for this, but here’s what I have purchased from Amazon: https://amzn.com/dp/B00DVCFFI6
3. Start with a clean slate for guiding - In PHD2, in the ASIAir app, or whatever app you’re using for guiding in your astrophotography system, begin your first session by clearing the calibration. Slew to a nice star near the meridian and about halfway toward the zenith. The ideal point is where the meridian meets the Celestial Equator. (If you are in the northern hemisphere slew to the southern meridian; in the southern hemisphere slew to the north). Run calibration in your autoguiding application or application module—let it run and build up the data to tune your system for better guiding. It takes a few minutes away from imaging, but in my experience, it’s always worth it.
4. The ZWO AM5 community and ZWO product information - There is already a lot of information out there, and the experiences with the AM5 grow every day. If you use Facebook, I highly recommend joining the ZWO AM5 Mount Users Group (https://bit.ly/3QCem7S). There are new posts of set ups, AM5 questions, with a lot of participation from the community. Or go to the source: ZWO has produced a full AM5 manual as well as quick guides for general operations and other products, which you may also have. Take some time to review the AM5 page on the ZWO site (https://bit.ly/3NVBufW). As of this writing, there are 131 items on the AM5 Q&A page, and the product page itself is long, with mount specifications, information on strain-wave gearing, periodic error measurements, mount features, mechanical diagrams, and more. For those who want to dig into their AM5’s periodic error report, “10 Things to Know About the PE Test Report” (https://bit.ly/3NmOzPk). And here's the ZWO Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAmDsyAh8Y0BeCN2Gs5pxrg
