Plate Solve and sync

[admin]

Hi Gary,

is it possible that when using GSS the mount co-ordinates are somehow wrong - ie the values that SharpCap is seeing are not the co-ordinates that the telescope is pointing at? That would likely cause the plate solving to fail as it would be searching the wrong part of the sky.

The most likely cause for this when switching to/from different mount drivers (like between EQMOD and GSS or Syscan and GSS) are either

1) The latitude/longitude are not set up properly in GSS

or

2) GSS is confused about the home position of the mount so that all positions are being offset

I would check that when the mount is first initialized in the home position and you connect via GSS that the declination reads +90 (or very close). If you are seeing something else then maybe there is the sort of confusion about the mount position mentioned in 2.

One thing you could try is to increase the plate solve search radius in the SharpCap plate solving settings from the default of 15 degrees to 180 - that will make SharpCap search the whole sky even for a plate solve and sync. If it does that, it should find the correct position even if the mount co-ordinates are way out, then syncing that to GSS should fix the problem by putting where GSS thinks the mount is and where it actually is back in sync.

cheers,

Robin

[Jean-Francois]

Hello,

Also it was and it is still a bad idea to start with EQMOD or SynScan and then switch to GSS ... or the opposite without restarting the mount (OFF - ON sequence).

But ... I have since few days ago a more serious problem with the GSS AutoHome.
When I start only with GSS the mount control, switch ON the mount with the telescope tube pointing to North and counterweight "down".
When I start GSS, it shows the telescope tube correctly pointing to the North. But if I start the AutoHome function, it search and found it ... but at the end the telescope view shows the tube pointing at the equator with DEC = 0 (also with both axis 90° wrong) ... but the real telescope is still pointing to the North axis.

I used the last GSS version 1.2.1.3. But my EQ8-Rh motor controller was first with an old driver (3.20).
I updated my mount with the last motor driver 3.45. But the same problem with the AutoHome.
I will send a message on the GSS forum about the AutoHome problem.


With SynScan (2.6.11 or preceding) ... no problem ... start, connect, auto home, connect to SharpCap and all is fine.
But ... it exists new hand controller drivers ... (4.42.00 or 6.04.01)
https://www.skywatcher.com/download/sof ... -firmware/
It was in my case not relevant while no hand controller was connected.

Regards,
Jean-Francois