Another meridian flip-related question

[cdanil]

When trying to execute a meridian flip, I got the following log:

Stop running these steps when 2 degrees from the meridian
11:51:03 PM Info : 'Mount at hour angle of -00:14:57, which is within 2.00 degrees of the meridian' while running step Stop running these steps when 2 degrees from the meridian
11:51:03 PM Completed : Stop running these steps when 2 degrees from the meridian

But unless I have the math wrong, an hour angle of 00:14:57 is 3.7375 degrees, so not yet within 2 degrees of the meridian. Also, according to SkySafari, the object (IC1613) was at that moment at an hour angle of 00h 10m 57s E (using JNOW), or 2.7375 degrees, so a bit different from the value acted upon by Sharpcap. And due to transit at 00:05:55.

So it looks like the flip would have been initiated earlier than planned. I'm trying to calculate how long to wait before doing a new GOTO after the meridian - I had figured 900 seconds.

[admin]

Hi,

any chance you are using an old version of SharpCap? The code for the meridian flip used to calculate based on the azimuth of the telescope, so would trigger when the azimuth hit 178 degrees in your case, which isn't the same as the RA being 2 degrees from the meridian.

Newer versions do calculate the stopping point based on the HA rather than the azimuth, but I did notice one more thing while testing this today...

Working with the ASCOM Simulator telescope driver worked fine and behaved as expected. However, using the 'Green Swamp Server' simulator failed (at least for the version of GS Server I have installed, which is probably a bit old now). This turns out to be because Green Swamp is reporting a different result for the 'side of pier' status of the telescope than the ASCOM simulator. w

When approaching the southern meridian and still east of it, ASCOM simulator reports 'WestSideLookingEast' (which I understand as being correct), but GSS reports 'EastSideLookingWest'. SharpCap interprets the 'EastSideLookingWest' result as indicating that the meridian flip of interest is the one where the telescope flips from looking west to looking east - ie a flip when the pointing goes through due North, under the pole. According to that interpretation of the data, the flip has already happened, so the wait concludes immediately.

The whole definition of the 'side of pier' property in ASCOM is rather fraught with complexity, but I hope that the actual ASCOM supplied simulator gets it right and I *think* the behaviour with GSS is simply 'Garbage in, Garbage out'.

cheers,

Robin

[cdanil]

Thanks for your reply, Robin. I'm running the latest Sharpcap Pro, 4.1.14310.0.

I recently got, and am getting used to, MLAstro's SAL-33 mount which runs OnstepX, so I'm connecting Sharpcap to "OnStep Telescope". Perhaps there's an issue there.

Cheers