YouTube Tutorial: How to Connect & Use Sharpcap with Seestar

[curtismacc]

Now that ZWO made the Seestar an Alpaca device folks have been connecting to it and, in some cases controlling it, with 3rd party software like SGP, NINA and Sharpcap. I just produced a video demonstrating how to connect to and control the Seestar with Sharpcap including a live demo of many of the features in Sharpcap such as Live View, Live Stacking and using the Sequencer to set up and execute an imaging session. There are a few minor issues one needs to be aware of including the fact that the Park command does not work yet, neither does dithering and we cannot control the dew heater on the Seestar with Sharpcap. These are Seestar Alpaca issues, the later two of which I know ZWO is working to fix. While I go through many of the main features in Sharpcap in this video, it is not intended to be a Sharpcap tutorial, rather a guide to getting started using Sharpcap with your Seestar and how to avoid a couple of interface issues. As always, I appreciate feedback. You can find the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxgZdEP6118

Best Regards,
Curtis

[admin]

Hi Curtis,

thanks for taking the time to make the video and share here! I do hope that ZWO also get around to fixing the Park/Unpark so that works to close or open the arm of the SeeStar. The other thing to note is that - as far as I can tell - using the camera in ROI mode is broken in the current SeeStar Alpaca driver. SharpCap currently doesn't offer option to choose ROI on the SeeStar to avoid this bug, but if that does get fixed at some point I will re-enable the ROI selection in SharpCap.

[curtismacc]

Robin,

Happy to do this. I will note that we should soon be able to dither the Seestar and also control the dew heater. I know there is a Beta version of the Alpaca which allows for dithering and some already have that capability, including me, but cannot yet share it. I have requested repeatedly for the Park function on the ZWO Tech forum and they have acknowledged such. I saw your previous post on the ROI.

Another thing that I note in the video. If starting from the Arm closed position and attempting to GoTo a Target, if the Target is called from the Sequnecer it works as it should. If the Arm is closed and we request a GoTo a Target using the Telescope Control in the bottom right of the Sharpcap software, it fails. Looks like there is a mount syncing issue which may be an Alpaca issue or possibly a Sharpcap issue. You may want to check it out. The work around is obviously to open the Arm first in the Seestar App and then ask for the GoTo with the Telescope Control. Once the arm is opened there is no issue either way one tries to GoTo a target.

[curtismacc]

I had to fix a problem with the original video so here is the revised link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpNAsfW04XA

[admin]

Hi Curtis,

thanks for the update - interesting that the arm opens in some circumstances and not in others - knowing that sort of thing is useful as if I can identify the working path then I could potentially code up some sort of workaround. I will investigate

cheers,

Robin

[curtismacc]

Robin,

One other thing to note which may help. I was running NINA tonight with the Seestar and while it also cannot Park the Seestar, it can send it to the Home position which is the same as the Arm closed on the Seestar. I know there is no Home option in Sharpcap, but maybe this gives you a clear as to what is going on.

Best Regards,
Curtis

[admin]

Hi Curtis,

ah, interesting - most mounts don't have much use for the ASCOM FindHome/AtHome/CanFindHome options, so I never got around to adding support to SharpCap, but I could Just got to work out where to put the buttons!

cheers,

Robin

[curtismacc]

I just confirmed that the latest Seestar Alpaca firmware update V1.1.2-1 includes control over the dew heater (under switches) and activates the Park command in NINA. I don't know if this also included the ability to dither since I am not sure to how set up and check dithering without a guider in Sharpcap. But I would expect dithering is included as well.

[admin]

Hi,

thanks for sharing - I will update my Seestar and see what appears. I am guessing that the dew heater will appear if you connect to a 'SeeStar Alpaca Switch Device' or similar.

I've actually added a workaround for park/unpark in the very latest SharpCap update - basically it spots it is talking to a seestar and re-wires 'park' to 'find home', etc., which then all seems to work as you would expect. However, maybe that is not required. Not quite sure how it will handle dithering - will have to investigate.

cheers,

Robin

[curtismacc]

Robin,

After making that post I did connect Sharpcap to my Seestar and the Dew heater shows up under Switches, same as in NINA. I confirmed that it does turn seeing a rise in input power when it is on versus off. And I confirmed the Park command does work. When I opened Sharpcap I saw that a new update was available which said it included some things to help make it work better with the Seestar so I figured you did some sort of work around for Park. Turns out it wasn't necessary to do after all. As for dithering I can confirm it works in NINA via On Mount without a guider. I saw that in Sharpcap there is an option to do dithering using ASCOM pulse guiding but I do not know how that works and wasn't able to do any testing on that feature anyway.

Regards,
Curtis