SharpCap Forums

Hi team

New user here, ran into one I havent encountered before. Been using BYEOS, PHD2, Stellarium together for imaging, but switched to sharpcap with new asi294.

When I attempt to connect to the mount (HEQ5), Eqmod is already up and running as I have PHD2 and Stellarium already connected... weirdly sharpcap tries to open its own instance of Eqmod rather than just connecting to the already open one. This doesnt work as the port that eqmod (the already running instance) is taken, so cant actually connect. Conversely, if I let sharpcap open eqmod first, it connects ok; but then the other programs cant tap into the open instance either. sharcap when it connects to eqmod appears to not want to share the connection with other apps.... what am i doing wrong??

In the ascom properties box, I only have one heq5/6 device listed... so im not sure why this is happening.

latest version of sharpcap, win 10.

any help greatly welcomed.

Hi,

the usual cause of this is running some things as administrator.

For instance if BYEOS runs as administrator and starts EQMOD then EQMOD is also running as administrator. Now you run SharpCap, but not as administrator and Windows will not let SharpCap talk to the running EQMOD (because that would be a non-administrator program telling an administrator one what to do). The end result is that SharpCap thinks EQMOD is not running and starts a new one.

If you run everything as administrator (or nothing as administrator) then it should all work.

hope this helps,

Robin

Hi Robin

Thanks for the idea! I am not using elevated permissions for any programs I use for astro (ie all just as non admin). I'll give that a try tonight and see if it helps.

The only other thing that comes to mind is could you have possibly selected the EQMOD Simulator in SharpCap?

I just tested with PHD2 and Stellarium separately (connecting to EQMOD using those applications first) and then connecting using SharpCap 4.0 and didn't get a second EQMOD.

cheers,

Robin

Gday Robin

Just reporting back, all the relevant apps weren't using elevated permissions. I tried setting stellarium, phd2 and sharpcap 4 with elevated permissions...same result!

And can def confirm we were picking the heq5/6 device from the ascom drop down. Still same, new instance of eqmod and can't connect cause port already in use

Going to try complete reinstall of sharpcap tonight just in case there is some conflict between sharpcap setting and eqmod.

As an aside, love the smart histogram, great feature! Just hope I can figure out how to make this my imaging app as well....apt doesnt seem to play well with the zwo camera ascom drivers!

Hi,

out of interest, what happens if you connect in the other order (SharpCap first, then stellarium/PHD)?

Something fishy is going on as this is close to my own setup (PHD, SharpCap, SkytechX as planetarium) and I have never had this issue with a second EQMOD.

cheers,

Robin

Hi Robin

When reversing the order (other apps connected to mount first), when sharpcap tries to connect, it again opens up a new instance of eqmod, but in this scenario eqmod reports cant connect as port already in use.

Have done a fresh install during the week and will set everything up again from scratch. Will report back as soon as I can test!

Apologies for the spread out replies, moving house and cloudy nights severely interrupting my progress on this!

Hi,

well good luck with the new install - hope it cures the problem (and you get some clear skies to actually use your kit...)

cheers,

Robin

Hi,

I had the selfsame issue - the same mount in fact -when I first started using Sharpcap and the solution was simply to always start with SC as the first program loaded and then let everything add in from SC ...e.g. setting the hardware tab so that the EQmod mount and focuser etc are loaded after a camera is connected in SC. then I started Stellarium scope...and then from that Stellarium

hope this helps if it happens to be the same issue?

TimH