GOTO target at RA/Dec yields “invalid coordinates”

[Johnarthur12]

Hello there!

I’m running SharpCap 4 with mount control via EQMOD ASCOM HEQ5/6 on a SkyWatcher EQ6 Pro mount.

I can GOTO any of the listed catalog DSOs, park and move the mount with no problems at all but as soon as I enter anything alphanumeric in the “GOTO target at RA/Dec:”tab I get a return “Invalid coordinates: ‘R’ if for example I enter the letter R.

I get exactly the same problem if I control the mount with SynScan Mobile.

Not sure what I’m doing wrong and would appreciate any advice/help.

Kind regards

Johnarthur12

[admin]

Hi,

I am thinking that you are trying to use the GOTO co-ordinates tool

Capture.JPG (65.8 KiB) Viewed 1844 times

There is currently an issue that lets the Start button stay active when invalid co-ordinates are entered - I have just changed the code to correct that.

You do need to enter a set of valid co-ordinates for it to work, for instance if you wanted to GOTO the Orion Nebula, any of these forms would work (to varying degrees of accuracy)

Code: Select all

05 35 17.3 -05 23 28
RA 5h 35m 17s | Dec -5° 23′ 28″
5h 35m 17s   -5° 23′ 28″
5h35m17.39s/Dec-5°23'28.24"
RA= 5h 35.4m, Dec= -05° 27´
RA: 05h 35m 24.0s Dec: -05°27'00"
5h RA, -5° DEC
RA 05h 35.4m |Dec. -05° 27″
RA 05h 35.4m, dec. –05º 27’
{RA=05:35:16,Dec=-05:23:28}
5.58805 -5.391
(05:35:20.556, -05:18:32.593)
(83.84, -5.309)

As an absolute minimum you must enter two numbers, RA first, separated by a space, comma, semicolon, etc.

Hope this helps,

Robin

[Johnarthur12]

Thanks Robin,

I can’t type anything in the GOTO target box . As soon as I type the first character say “5”, the following is immediately entered in the box by the program;

Invalid Co-ordinates: ‘5’

If I type in a second character, I get another message in the box beside the first.


I can type in any other box without this happening. I’m following your recommendations for recognised coordinates but can’t even type a single character without this error.

I’m not touching the enter key at all

Regards

JP

[admin]

Hi,

is your version of SharpCap 4 right up to date - I can't find the text 'Invalid co-ordinates' in the current code and I think I remember fixing an issue like this in the not too distant past. The latest is 4.0.9357.

If you are up to date then please send a screenshot showing the error - maybe I will spot something in the screenshot that helps track it down that is not obvious from your descriptions.

thanks,

Robin

[Johnarthur12]

Thanks Robin,

I’m one update behind so will do that tomorrow. I’ve taken a few phone pics but am struggling to get them down to less than 1 mb on my phone.

Thanks for taking the time.

JP

[admin]

Hi,

I did a further check and it looks like I removed the code that produced the 'Invalid Co-ordiates' message back in July, so installing the latest version should solve the problem.

cheers,

Robin

[Johnarthur12]

Update has fixed it. Thank you.

JP