Set Up Your Rig
Rig setup is a checklist of everything a new rig needs before a night of imaging, in an order that keeps your data good: your settings first, then the camera offset, flats, bias and darks, then focus, polar alignment, plate solving and guiding under the stars.
The rig decides when a step is done from what it holds: a trained flat profile, frames on disk, a measured backlash. You can stop at any time and come back on any device; the checklist keeps your place.
Open Rig setup
Section titled “Open Rig setup”- The first time you connect a rig and confirm its equipment, ARIS asks Set up your rig? Tap Start, or Not now. It asks once per rig on each device.
- Home shows a RIG SETUP card with your progress (for example 9 of 18) until every step is done or skipped. Tap Continue ›.
- Settings → Rig setup always has the list, also after you finish, so you can check or redo a step.
- In the Array view, a rig whose setup is not finished shows Setup n of m › on its card.
- A setup notification opens Rig setup on the rig it is about.
How the checklist works
Section titled “How the checklist works”The checklist has two halves, Indoors and Under the stars. On a tablet or computer they sit side by side; on a phone, switch between them at the top.
Each row is marked YOU (you do it) or RIG (the rig does it), and says where that step stands, such as gain 100 → offset 50 or 7 filters to train. Only steps for equipment the rig has appear: a rig with no filter wheel has no Filters step.
Tap a row to see why the step matters and what you can do:
- Open step takes you to the screen that does the job. That screen’s back button, or a ‹ Rig setup · step pill, brings you back.
- Mark done appears on the steps only you can confirm, such as Filters, Camera, Mount limits, Rotator, Power & dew and Rough focus. The pill has it too.
- Skip sets a step aside. A skipped step never holds up the steps after it.
- Undo takes back a Mark done or a Skip.
A step that needs another one first says so, for example needs Camera first.
Steps can open again when something changes:
- Change the camera’s gain, and Camera offset, Flats, Bias and Darks open again for the new gain.
- A step you marked done opens again when what you confirmed changes: you rename a filter, or change the camera, mount, rotator or power box.
- Bias or darks older than six months show their age in amber, for example 7 months old.
The steps
Section titled “The steps”Indoors
Section titled “Indoors”The steps you do are grouped in one row, Your settings. Tap it to see each one.
| Step | Who | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment | You | Connect every device and tell ARIS which camera takes your pictures and which one guides. Done when every device you set up is connected and the cameras are confirmed. |
| Site & clock | You | Save the rig’s location. The rig needs it, and the right time on the mount, to find objects and to know when the night starts. Done when a site is saved and the mount’s clock is right. |
| Optics | You | Enter the telescope’s focal length and aperture, and on a rig that guides, the guide scope or off-axis guider and the guide camera. Plate solving and guiding are built on these numbers. |
| Filters | You | Give each filter slot its real name. Flats and focus offsets are saved per filter, and the short name goes into your image files. If a slot holds a blank, name it Dark: the rig then shoots bias and darks through it. |
| Camera | You | Check the gain, offset and cooler target. Your darks, bias and flats must match them, and a cooled camera’s offset check, bias and darks cool to the saved target. |
| Mount limits | You | Check when the mount flips to the other side, and the limits that stop the telescope before it can hit the mount. |
| Rotator | You | Check the rotator’s direction and travel limit, so framing angles come out right and the cables do not wind up. |
| Power & dew | You | Tell ARIS which power-box port powers the rig, so it never switches that port off, and check the dew heaters. |
| Alerts | You | Turn on Guardian and its alerts, so the rig tells you about clouds, dawn and lost guiding. |
| Camera offset | Rig | The rig runs Find best offset and applies the offset it finds, so the darkest pixels stay above zero. Bias and darks shot before the check no longer count. |
| Flats | Rig | The rig trains the flat exposure for each filter with your flat panel, and you accept each profile. Needs a flat panel. |
| Bias | Rig | The rig shoots 200 bias frames. The step is done once at least 100 bias frames at the camera’s current gain and offset are on the rig. |
| Darks | Rig | The rig shoots 10 darks at each exposure your saved sequences use, or at 60, 180 and 300 seconds if you have none. One set lasts 6 to 12 months at the same gain, offset and temperature. |
On a camera with a cooler, bias and darks count only when they were shot at your saved cooler target (−10 °C if none is saved). If the rig holds frames at another temperature, the row says how many and at what reading.
Under the stars
Section titled “Under the stars”| Step | Who | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Rough focus | You | Turn the focuser until the stars are small points, so autofocus has stars it can measure. Mark it done, or it counts as done once autofocus or a plate solve succeeds. |
| Polar alignment | You | Polar-align the mount on the Align screen. Done once the rig has measured an alignment error; how small is your call. See Polar Alignment. |
| Plate solve & sync | Rig | The rig slews to a bright star field high in the sky, solves it and syncs the mount, so every target lands in the middle of the frame. |
| Focuser backlash | Rig | The rig measures the slack in the focuser’s gears, and you apply it on the Focuser screen. |
| Autofocus | Rig | The rig runs one autofocus, which learns the right step size for your focuser and telescope. |
| Filter offsets | Rig | The rig measures how far each filter’s focus is from the reference filter, and you apply the offsets. After that the rig refocuses at once after a filter change. |
| Guiding calibration | Rig | The rig slews near the meridian and the celestial equator, where calibration works best, and runs a fresh guiding calibration. Guiding keeps running afterwards. |
| All-sky camera | Rig | If the rig has an all-sky camera (see SkyNode), the rig fits its lens to the stars, so clouds and targets land in the right place on its image. |
Run the rest
Section titled “Run the rest”A half with steps left has a Run the rest button. On a phone it is at the bottom, labelled with the half and the number of steps left, for example Run indoors (4 steps). The rig then works through that half’s open steps in order, on its own:
- At a YOU step that is not done, the run waits and the row says what to do, for example Check the gain, offset and cooler target, then tap Mark done. Do it, then tap the button on the row.
- RIG steps run on the rig, with a live line and a progress bar.
- A dark light path. For the camera offset, bias and darks, the rig closes a flat panel’s cover itself. With no cover, it asks you once to cap the scope, then tap Continue.
- Results to accept. Trained flats, a measured backlash and filter offsets wait on their row for you to tap Review and accept them. The run goes on with the next step that does not need that result.
- Every slew asks first. Before Plate solve & sync and Guiding calibration, a sheet shows the RA and Dec it will go to and how far the mount moves. Tap Slew, or Skip this step. The run never parks the mount.
- A failure pauses the run. The row shows what happened, the likely fix and the last frame, with Retry, Skip and Open the step. Frames and measurements the step already made are kept.
Pause, Resume and Stop are in the half’s header, or at the bottom on a phone. A rig runs one half at a time.
Under the stars starts only after dark: before then its button shows the time, for example after dark · 8:12 PM. If a run reaches its first sky step before dark, it waits; tap Continue to go on anyway, for example with an artificial star.
You can close the app while a run goes on. If the rig is paired for remote access, it also notifies your phone when the run needs you, pauses on a failure, or finishes. Tap the notification to open Rig setup on that rig.