ASCOM ES_PMC8.Telescope

[Donpedro1810]

I have an IEXOS-2 telescope mount with PMC-8 control. I would like to control the mount with Sharpcap, unfortunately the setup causes problems. I get the following error message when I click on properties. Can someone help me, please.

[brisguy]

I have an ES EXOS2 mount and I use SharpCap.

I wonder why you have setup SC to connect directly to the ES driver. Normally you would connect ASCOM POTH to the driver and then connect other apps, like Stellarium and SharpCap, to POTH. This is what I do and it works fine. In fact, being able to select the "solve and resync" function is a game changer!

Try that change to your setup and it should work. I recommend checking out the MAIN or Applications groups in the ES forums. Several topics related to ASCOM control have been posted there and cover these topics.

Note that after trying to use SC with the "Connect hardware automatically..." box checked (as show on your screencap), I had trouble. So I unchecked that box and launch POTH first, connect the scope, and then launch SC. Works every time now.

[admin]

Hi,

please could you post the SharpCap log captured after you have made the error happen, so I can investigate whether this is a SharpCap bug or a bug in the ASCOM driver.

thanks,

Robin

[Donpedro1810]

I wonder why you have setup SC to connect directly to the ES driver. Normally you would connect ASCOM POTH to the driver and then connect other apps, like Stellarium and SharpCap, to POTH. This is what I do and it works fine. In fact, being able to select the "solve and resync" function is a game changer!

I thought that if you already have the option of configuring the hardware in Sharpcap, why not use this? Switching between Poth and Sharpcap is not comfortable.

[Donpedro1810]

Hi,

please could you post the SharpCap log captured after you have made the error happen, so I can investigate whether this is a SharpCap bug or a bug in the ASCOM driver.

thanks,

Robin

here the log file:

[admin]

Hi,

well, there is definitely a bug in the ASCOM driver, since SharpCap is just setting the connected status to false before showing the setup window and there is no way that should cause an error from the ASCOM driver but it does. On the other hand, I will try to change the code so that this error is not triggered (after all, if the device is already flagged as not connected then I don't need to set that status). Hopefully that will resolve the issue without needing a bug fix from the ASCOM driver developers.

cheers,

Robin

[brisguy]

>Switching between Poth and Sharpcap is not comfortable.

There is no switching between the two in the configuration I mentioned. POTH serves as a hub for mount control that is shared between the pointing app (used to find targets) and the camera app. You can control the mount with either, but once I am setup, I normally don't move the mount manually using either control. I use Stellarium to select the targets and slew and use 'solve and sync' to center the target. I don't understand what you're trying to do however. How are you slewing to your targets? ExploreStars?

[Donpedro1810]

I use Stellarium to select the targets and slew and use 'solve and sync' to center the target.

Thank you for your response. It's good to talk about Stellarium. With Stellarium I also have problems with my IEXOS-2. The mount is correctly connected in the Stellarium, but when I want to slewing onto an object, I get this message:
But the telescope is not parked!
what else can I do?

[Donpedro1810]

I have an ES EXOS2 mount and I use SharpCap.

Which ASCOM driver do you have installed?

[brisguy]

I have seen others complain of the 'parked scope' issue. I used to have it too but not since using POTH and connecting Stellarium to POTH instead of the PMC-8 driver. However, this is a SharpCap forum so think we should move this discussion to the one of the pmc-8 forums. Since you are a pmc-8 user, you will benefit from those. They are here: https://espmc-eight.groups.io

If you search for 'Stellarium' in the Main group, you will see a posting I made where I stumble through the steps and get feedback and finally get it working.