Sharpcap mount control

[Jonathancilia]

Hi guys i have been using sharpcap for more than a year now and have been totally awesome, now i want to start connecting my mounts to it to use the recentering feature during the livestack

I have 2 mounts, the skywatcher virtuoso 150 gti and the skywatcher adventurer gti

The star adventurer connected no problem to sharpcap through the synscan app driver option in the sharpcap settings, the skywatcher virtuoso 150 however i cannot get it to connect with the same settings and it is with wifi aswell, both mounts have no hand controllers. Do i need the EQMOD cable or the dongle to connect the skywatcher virtuoso mount to sharpcap? Thanks

[admin]

Hi,

I must admit I have no experience with the WIFI connected Skywatcher mounts. I guess the first thing to try would be to see if you can get the Synscan Pro app on the PC to control the virtuoso mount at all via WIFI (using the movement direction buttons and so on). If you get that working then I think SharpCap should work. I guess you would probably have to make sure the PC is connected to the WIFI network from the mount (or connect the mount to your home WIFI if that is possible).

Personally, I'm a big fan of sticking with cabled connections to mounts and other hardware - they tend to be a lot more reliable. You may be able to get something to connect direct from USB on the PC to the mount - look for an 'EQ Direct' cable, but make sure that it is advertised as compatible with your model.

cheers,

Robin

[Jonathancilia]

Yes when i connect the mount to sysncan pc i can connect it and it works when presing the arrows but on sharpcap it doesnt connect, very weird but the eq mount i have connects just fine.

When using the eqmod cable what setting do i use in the hardware control? I have the synscan app driver currently set

[admin]

Hi,

if you want to use a cable then there are a couple of choices for ASCOM driver - EQMOD which is well tested and reliable but getting a little long in the tooth and Green Swamp Server which is a much newer option. I have used both with my EQ6 and had good results from them.

Just one more thought - do you have Synscan App running before trying to connect from SharpCap? I think that might be necessary (it certainly is for Celestron CPWI).

cheers,

Robin

[Jonathancilia]

Yes synscan is running before sharpcap and i have the sysnscan app driver selected from the hardware list

So with the cable i just connect my mount to the pc and tgen i connect with synscsn normally and then to sharpcap?

[admin]

Hi,

probably best to try to find someone who has already gone down the cable route for your model of mount (either here or on some other forums) to check that the cables work and which software you need to use with them.

You should be able to persuade Synscan to talk to your mount via the correct cable (I just tried this with my EQ6), but difficult to be sure if that will fix the connection problem in SharpCap as we don't 100% know the cause of it.

cheers,

Robin

[Rocket_Guy]

Not sure exactly how you are set up, but I have an HEQ5 mount and had a lot of trouble connecting until I got this cable adapter: https://www.skywatcherusa.com/products/ ... sb-adapter

Things work perfectly now. Robin is also correct that you have to connect to Synscan Pro first and then connect to Sharpcap.

Bill