Mount Control

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DuaneS
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Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2018 4:08 am

Mount Control

#1

Post by DuaneS »

Hi Robin - I am not sure if this is a bug or not. I am able to connect to my Planewave L-500 mount but the movement buttons are greyed out. I have the latest version of ASCOM from Planewave. The tracking button and the RA/Dec readout are working, just not the movement buttons. I have other planetarium programs that appear to work OK. Am I missing something? First time using the mount control. Also running the latest beta of SharpCap 4.0

Duane
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Re: Mount Control

#2

Post by admin »

Hi Duane,

can you post your log (captured after connecting to the mount). There are a number of criteria for the movement buttons to enable, first the ASCOM driver has to support the 'MoveAxis' command (some don't), second it has to report a valid set of available axis movement rates. All of this ends up in the log if there are any problems.

cheers,

Robin
DuaneS
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Dec 06, 2018 4:08 am

Re: Mount Control

#3

Post by DuaneS »

Robin - attached is the log after connecting to the mount. I do see in the log that Sharpcap cannot move axis. This seems to be an odd situation. Not sure how other mounts handle this. I did reach out to Planewave and the move axis is planned for a future implementation but not anytime soon. Other software I have moves mount or slews and performs goto's. Not sure if there is a workaround for this
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SharpcapPro Log.txt
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Re: Mount Control

#4

Post by admin »

Hi,

yes, it looks like the missing MoveAxis command is the problem. There are two other ways for SharpCap to potentially move the telescope, but they both have drawbacks.

1) Using Slew to co-ordinates commands - this doesn't really fit very nicely with the idea of being able to nudge the mount left/right/up/down at a particular rate, since you get to pick the target co-ordinates, but the mount decides how quickly to get there

2) Setting the Declination and Right Ascension offset tracking rates - this is a bit better, but only supported by some mounts. The other problem here is that there is no way for SharpCap to find out what range of offset tracking rates are supported by the mount, which is awkward, since there's no way to work out what range of rates to show the user.

Are there any other programs that you know of that do allow left/right/up/down nudge buttons like SharpCap with your mount? If there are maybe I can see how they do it by turning on ASCOM logging to see what commands they send.

cheers,

Robin
DuaneS
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Re: Mount Control

#5

Post by DuaneS »

Thanks Robin for the reply and help. One question: I have not used the sequencer yet so I am unfamiliar with how how it work, I will read the documentation. My Planewave L500 pretty much puts every object in the center so I really might not need plate solving and centering buttons. Will I still be able to goto an object in the catalog from the sequencer planner?
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Re: Mount Control

#6

Post by admin »

Hi,

yes, that should work, since that uses a separate 'Slew' command which I think is mandatory for ASCOM drivers.

cheers,

Robin
DuaneS
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Re: Mount Control

#7

Post by DuaneS »

Hi Robin - just thinking, is it even possible to use plate solving or Click to Recenter if the MoveAxis command is not present?

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Re: Mount Control

#8

Post by admin »

Hi Duane,

yes, click-to-recenter should also be OK, since that uses the 'slew' functionality rather than move axis.

cheers,

Robin
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