Add feature in Scope Controls to show current Hour Angle and Set Park

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Pete Armstrong
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Joined: Tue May 12, 2020 8:45 pm

Add feature in Scope Controls to show current Hour Angle and Set Park

#1

Post by Pete Armstrong »

Hello,

I've been using SharpCap for a year now and just renewed my license. It has captured over 2TB of good data for me.

I would like to see the current scope Hour Angle in the Scope Controls window. It is useful to be able to determine remaining time before a pier flip is needed. I'm guessing that most ASCOM mount drivers report this. I know that I can get Hour Angle from my planetarium program, but I would like to see it in SC since I always have it on top. Also I can't find any provision to set the mount's park position from SC. Maybe some mounts don't support this through ASCOM, but I think my Celestron CGEM DX does.

Thank You for providing such a great program.

Pete
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Re: Add feature in Scope Controls to show current Hour Angle and Set Park

#2

Post by admin »

Hi,

thanks for the suggestions – I certainly have ideas around dealing with meridian flips in a future update of SharpCap. I wonder if the best thing to do would be display the hour angle or to just display a countdown to the Meridian?

On the subject of the parking position – the only functionality related to parking that is available to SharpCap through the Ascom driver is as follows

1) Park
2) Unpark
3) set parking position to the current position

SharpCap obviously gives you access to the first two at the moment. It is the third item in the list what you are thinking of? If it is then I'm not sure I understand why you would need to access it frequently – in my mind it's something you do once when you set up the telescope and probably never do again, but maybe I'm just missing something :)

Cheers, Robin
Pete Armstrong
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue May 12, 2020 8:45 pm

Re: Add feature in Scope Controls to show current Hour Angle and Set Park

#3

Post by Pete Armstrong »

Thanks Robin for the quick response.

Regarding Hour Angle, either HA or a countdown would be great since the numbers would be the same except for sign. I'm not sure what would be displayed for countdown when already on the West side.
The Set Park to current request is just a 'nit' I guess. And if present, folks (like me) might hit it by mistake. So please disregard. I just hate dealing with my mount through its hand controller.

Pete . . .
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Re: Add feature in Scope Controls to show current Hour Angle and Set Park

#4

Post by admin »

Hi Pete,

don't the Celestron mounts have a virtual hand controller that runs on the PC? Mind you, that may not be much better than the real hand controller…

I'd be hard pressed to actually find and controller for my mount – it's used entirely through EQMOD :)

Cheers, Robin
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