About the Spiral Search Direction

[takuya_t]

Hi Robin,

I completely agree with both 1) and 2) you mentioned. So, I only reluctantly remove the Barlow lens when I can't find anything after searching. Another reason is that when focusing directly on Jupiter or Saturn, it's hard to tell where the perfect focus is, so if possible, I would like to first achieve precise focus using a Bahtinov mask on another star and then keep Jupiter or Saturn in view.

Regards,
Takuya

[jamesjacob]

Hello, just checking in to see if any updates are planned for spiral search based on the discussions in this thread? I tried out spiral search on Jupiter the other day and experienced the same issue mentioned in the first message - the spiral kept going in the top left direction when Jupiter was in the bottom right.

[admin]

Hi,

I'd like to improve it, but I suspect that will end up being very sensitive to the exact details of the mount/ASCOM driver in use. If you try to base the movement for a leg on 'movement time * mount speed' then you are prone to errors due to the time the mount takes to respond, get moving, stop, etc. On the other hand, if you try to work based on the co-ordinates then the update rate of the co-ordinates can be an issue - if the values SharpCap sees are always 0.5 or 1.0 or 1.5s out of date then things go wrong because of that

Thanks for re-flagging this for attention though - it's definitely not as good as it could be.

cheers,

Robin