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Celestron Focuser and Sharcap

Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2019 12:30 pm
by PEskimo
Hello there.. Been enjoying this hobby using a DSLR and recently made the decision to go the next step and started using a dedicated Astronomy camera. Well everyone told me that this was going to be a great move and wouldn't regret it! Sadly so far this has not been the case! Between bad weather, freezing nights and the Moon, something seems to always impede my progress. The latest problem seems to be when I connect SharpCap to my gear and try to use the Celestron Focuser.

There are two main problems..
Focuser controls seem to only allow the stepper motor to go in one direction and it simply refuses to allow me to control the number of steps or the direction, regardless on whether I tick the box to tell it to reverse the motor. Oh and the Focuser is not connected by USB.

If this wasn't bad enough when I go to try and use the Focuser with the hand control I find the Celestron CGX mount is unresponsive and no matter what I do to try and recover I'm forced to shut it down which then results in having to realign the mount again.

The first few times this happened I thought it was simply something I was doing wrong and with other small issues always popping up this seemed to be just another to add to the list! The Log files are more than likely useless due to the fact that when this happens I exit SharpCap several times trying different approaches to focus the target so that I can try to begin imaging, but so far I've had no luck..

Any suggestions would be great

Re: Celestron Focuser and Sharcap

Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2019 8:57 pm
by admin
Hi,

You say that the focuser isn't connected via USB, which makes me wonder how the focuser is connected to your computer. I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with this particular model so it would be useful to know how it connected.

I can see in one of your log files that SharpCap couldn't connect the focuser because the serial port that it was trying to use (COM7) didn't appear to be available.

Cheers, Robin

Re: Celestron Focuser and Sharcap

Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2019 10:21 pm
by roelb
I have also problems with connecting to the Celestron Focuser.
Their are 2 possibilities to connect:
1. via "USB-ASCOM" setup (http://software.celestron.com/installer ... COM_Driver
Even with the correct COM port the connection is refused.
When I reboot the PC sometimes the connection is possible and the SC interface fully works.
After using the Celestron Focuser Utility (http://software.celestron.com/installer ... er_Utility
and closing the connection always fails.
2. via ASCOM "Celestron Unified Telescope & Focuser" setup (https://ascom-standards.org/Downloads/ScopeDrivers.htm
The focuser is recognized but the SC interface isn't operable (eg. the focuser steps cannot be entered).

Re: Celestron Focuser and Sharcap

Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2019 12:29 am
by umasscrew39
Hi Roel

This is strange and I saw the lengthy discussion on CN about all of the connection issues. I have been using this focuser for months now with my C11" and SC with no issues. Only a couple of times did I boot up SC and it did not connect but I simply rebooted and it worked. I am connecting via the USB-ASCOM driver but I am using an AP mount so I cannot comment on the Celestron hand controller issues. Other things that might cause an issue are not having enough power to control the focuser and a poor USB cable. Both of these could potentially mess it up from working properly.

Bruce

Re: Celestron Focuser and Sharcap

Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2019 10:48 pm
by roelb
Thanks Bruce for your reply.
Powering the focuser is no problem because I can connect via the Celestron Focuser Utility without issues.
What I experienced is that when using the focuser with the HC the USB connection to the PC must be done afterwards.
Because I always start my EEA session with focusing using a Bathinov mask, I use the HC.
So the order of which the connections are made seems to be importent.
Seems to be a complicated behavior when using the CPWI software as can be seen in this link:
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/6455 ... ?p=9548869

Re: Celestron Focuser and Sharcap

Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2019 10:50 pm
by roelb
note: I always use both connections at the same time: AUX and USB

Re: Celestron Focuser and Sharcap

Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2019 9:13 pm
by stbkaiser
Peskimo
If I may ask what is your equipment setup and how are you making connections.
And Yes, depending on how you are making connections, it can be important on the connection sequence.
Here is my connection setup and how I power up.
connections
connections
CGX-AUX-USB connections1.jpg (131.7 KiB) Viewed 3438 times
Hope this helps

Re: Celestron Focuser and Sharcap

Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2019 1:50 pm
by PEskimo
Hello again and thanks for the replies.
stbkaiser, thanks for the info. My setup is a Celestron Edge 9.25 and I use the Aux port to connect to the focuser. I've not tried using both the Aux and USB yet so I might try that next and see if that works. If it fails there might be something wrong with the focuser as it does the same with Sequence Generator Pro.