Not recognizing my mount for Tracking Feature

[johnpd]

I wanted to try the Tracking Feature in the latest Beat. I put my mount in the Hardware Settings ("Hubo-i" for the RST-135 mount) and when I went to select it in the Feature Tracking panel, it was not recognized even though if was up and running and I had been using it to adjust my mount's position. Not sure if I am missing something.

JohnD

[admin]

Hi John,

the quick check list is

* Mount set up in the SharpCap 'Hardware' settings page?
* Mount 'Connected' in the 'Scope Controls' section on the right?
* Mount supports the 'Move Axis' and/or 'Pulse Guiding' ASCOM commands. If the mount does not support move axis then the arrow buttons in the right hand control block in SharpCap will not enable.

Once you have all of those, you should be able to choose a movement speed in feature tracking.

If still no luck, please post a screenshot.

cheers,

Robin

[johnpd]

Thanks Robin,

I think I have everything squared away. I don't even have to bring up the basic ASCOM Device Hub. SharpCap starts the mount hub and connects automatically. Its nice that you have that little direction control of the mount available as well so I don't have to flip between the mount's ASCOM control panel and SharpCap. Thanks for the great work you have put into this software.

JohnD

[johnpd]

I am unable to calibrate. I am using an Alt-Az mount. Is there any issue with using the feature with that kind of mount? Here are a couple of screen prints of the calibration process.

JohnD

SharpCap Pro (v4.1.10407, 64 bit) - Apollo-M MINI (IMX429) Feature_Track-2.png (91.37 KiB) Viewed 2040 times

SharpCap Pro (v4.1.10407, 64 bit) - Apollo-M MINI (IMX429) Feature_Track-1.png (58.54 KiB) Viewed 2040 times

[admin]

Hi,

OK, if you switch the tab to show 'Scatter' rather than 'Movement' you will see that the movement of the image is not in opposite directions when the mount moves in opposite directions. This can happen due to backlash effects, tracking interacting with the movements or other reasons. However, the angles are not too far out from being opposite (probably only a bit beyond the tolerance threshold that SharpCap allows for).

The first suggestion I would have is to increase the 'Required Movement (Pixels)' setting to 150 to 200 or so. This will make SharpCap calibrate over a larger movement range, which should increase the chances of the directions being measured correctly and therefore of the calibration succeeding.

It's odd that the movement seems to be referencing the declination axis although you say that the mount is an AltAz one - that must mean that the ASCOM driver for your mount is working in equatorial mode (and translating the commands to the right AltAz ones to work with the mount). I don't think that should be a problem, but it is unusual.

cheers,

Robin

[johnpd]

Hi Robin,

I changed the required movement to 150 and that did it.

Thanks,
JohnD

[admin]

Hi John,

brilliant - that makes sense because the amount of unwanted movement stays roughly the same, but the correct movement is increased by a factor of 3, meaning that any effect of the unwanted movement on the directions is about 3 times smaller.

Hope that you get some good images now it is working

cheers,

Robin