Classic LX200: Confirm if Scope Motion Control is Supported

[amstuart]

Hi:

Running SharpCap and an SV305 camera with a MEADE Classic LX200. I use MS Team Viewer to remotely connect to my observatory PC. During extended runs when doing planetary imaging, without guiding I get 20-25 minutes of Jupiter staying within frame. I want to jog the telescope N/S but get an error message from SharpCap regarding the MoveAxis command. I downloaded the ASCOM platform and the Meade LX200 driver. TheSky and Stellarium have motion controls that I can use via the RS232 protocol, but I was hoping to keep my browser uncluttered and use the telescope motion controls in SharpCap.

Please confirm if the motion controls are unavailable for my telescope.

Thank you.

Adam

[admin]

Hi Adam,

can you post the link to the download of the exact ASCOM driver you have installed please? Unfortunately there are several for the Meade telescopes and they have varying abilities. At least one of them does not support the MoveAxis command that SharpCap needs to nudge the mount using the arrow buttons, but there is a workaround built into SharpCap that sends the movement commands direct to the mount. However, it's possible that the driver you have may not be the same one that I originally worked with when building the workaround.

Unfortunately I don't personally have any Meade kit, so it all has to happen by trial and error and user feedback, but if you can share the link to download the ASCOM driver I will have a look and see where we are.

thanks,

Robin

[amstuart]

Hi Robin:

Fantastic software, by the way. I am using SharpCap for planetary imaging and will soon return to Deep Sky.
I attached a few screen captures. The ASCOM platform download is from the main Site. The MEADE LX200 driver from the download link on the Site is for Generic LX200 driver. This Generic LX200 driver produced the error message when trying to use the motion controls in SharpCap. I then downloaded the ASCOM Meade Driver 5.0 for the "original Classic" and although the motion controls in SharpCap do not work, a floating white Advanced LX200 box opened up which has N/S/E/W directional keys and an ability to toggle JOG speeds in "minutes". This floating box works for motion control in 4 axis manner.
I will continue to try other downloads or tweaks if I can get the SharpCap motion controls to talk to my MEADE LX200 mount.

https://pixelstelescopes.wordpress.com/advanced-lx200/
https://ascom-standards.org/Downloads/Index.htm
https://bitbucket.org/cjdskunkworks/mea ... /wiki/Home



Thank you, Robin.

[admin]

Hi,

thanks for the info.

I have had a look at both drivers, and I can see that the one that shows as 'Meade Generic' has a bit of an issue - it claims that it can do the 'MoveAxis' command that SharpCap needs, but when asked how many movement rates are available, it gives an empty list. This is just a long winded way of saying 'sorry, can't move the axis', so SharpCap doesn't enable the movement buttons. In particular that odd claim that the driver can do MoveAxis stops SharpCap's workaround kicking in.

The other driver both claims to be able to do 'MoveAxis', and lists some movement rates, but it looks like they are sample data - you can see the code here : https://bitbucket.org/cjdskunkworks/mea ... e/Rates.cs. It looks like it is returning rates of 1,2,3 and 4 - these are measured in degrees per second, so they are all very much in the 'fast movement' range. I suspect that part of the code just hasn't been implemented.

I have made a change to try to let SharpCap detect and deal with the issue of the Meade Generic driver - this will be in the next update of SHarpCap 4.1 beta (see the beta forums).

cheers,

Robin

[amstuart]

Thank you, Robin. I look forward to testing the functionality.

Happy Holidays.

Adam