SharpCap Forums

Hi,

has anyone ever managed to control an AstroPhysics mount with SharpCap 4.0?

I own an AstroPhysics E600 with GTO CP2 controller. Everything works perfectly, I can control the mount with the hand controller, with Stellarium and SkySafari Pro V7 (via the smartphone) - even at the same time.
When I open SharpCap 4.0, the ASCOM Control Panel also opens and the mount is connected correctly. Unfortunately, I can then only control the mount via the ASCOM Control Panel. In SharpCap the correct coordinates are shown in RA and DEC and also the control buttons are not greyed out. Only when I click on the control buttons in SharpCap nothing happens. i.e. almost nothing: In the ASCOM Control Panel, the display goes from Tracking Rate (e.g. Sidereal) to Custom (which also seems logical). The mount just doesn't move. Only the "Park" function works: If I click on "Park" in SharpCap, the mount moves to the park position.
So far I have always worked with the ASCOM Control Panel. However, if SharpCap cannot control the mount, many things will not work, such as plate solving and the other things SharpCap needs to control the mount.

Cheers,

Bernd

Hi Bernd,

have you tried changing the movement speed selection in SharpCap? This is just under the 'Connected' check box, to the right of the movement buttons. The list of rates shown there will depend on the capabilities of the mount, but it may be that the default rate is very slow - ie '1x' means sidereal rate, '2x' is twice sidereal, etc.

Try choosing a faster rate if there are any and see if that helps. If the list of rates is very limited then please share a SharpCap log captured after you have connected to the mount and tried using it - there will be info in the log that will let me work out what is going on.

thanks,

Robin

Hi Robin,

I tested the movement speed in SharpCap first. Movement speeds from 1x to 4°/s are displayed.
But as already described, the mount does not move.
I copied the log of the action from the log directory (Log_2022-10-22T20_37_31-3152.log)
How can I send you the log file? Or should I post the text here as an answer?

Thanks for the help

Bernd

Ok, I just see that I can attach a file

Hi Bernd,

no obvious errors in that log (and I can see the movement rate list being initialized as you say with 4 degrees/sec being the maximum).

Some more things to check out

1) You are holding down the button in SharpCap rather than just pressing it? If you just click it then it will move the mount for a fraction of a second and then stop again.

2) Look for any options in the ASCOM driver setup that might relate to 'Move Axis' - this is the command SharpCap sends to the mount when you use those buttons. Maybe something in the settings is blocking movement?

3) You can usually turn on debug logging in an ASCOM driver which will make it log the commands sent to it by the application. You can also turn on additional logging in SharpCap to log the commands it is sending (https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.0/#Logging%20Tab). By doing both and getting enhanced logs from both sides for a test session, we might find out something of interest.

cheers,

Robin

Hi Robin,

and thank you for your help and patience with my problem.

Of course, I pressed the buttons in SharpCap for a long time and at the same time watched the live image from the cam to see if anything was moving there.
Today I connected the mount to SharpCap again and attached both log files. Once the log file from SharpCap and once the ASCOM log file.
When I enable additional logging in SharpCap to log the commands sent, the log file becomes 6.9Mb. For this reason I have zipped the SharpCap log file and attached it here, as well as the ASCOM log file.

Best regards
Bernd

Hi Bernd,

thank you for collecting both logs.

Searching in the ASCOM log for 'MoveAxis', I can see that every time SharpCap sends a MoveAxis command, this pattern appears in the log
I presume the 'RR' command being sent to the mount is a 'move in RA' command (RD appears when SharpCap asks for a declination move). The mount seems not to be accepting that command from the driver - you can see the 'Giving Up' comment too, which is being generated by the ASCOM driver.

I think this is most likely to be a mount/ASCOM driver issue, which you might want to raise with AstroPhysics to see if they have any suggestions. I can see that you have the latest ASCOM driver version, but it may be worth investigating if there are any firmware updates for your mount that might help here. It is possible that for some reason the mount does not like the exact slew rate being sent to it by SharpCap, but I think that is unlikely, since the initial check of available slew rates indicates that the mount claims to support any rate between 0 and 5 degrees per second.

Hope this helps,

Robin

Hi Robin,

yes, that helps a lot.
I just wrote an email to AstroPhysics. Let's see if they can solve the problem. If there's anything new, I'll report back here.

Thanks

Bernd

Hi Robin,

I have attached the correspondence with AstroPhysics. Unfortunately, I only reached a seller and I haven't received a message for a few days. I also sent the log to AstroPhysics. But I suppose because of one program they don't bother to update the driver.

Regards

Bernd



========================================================================================


Bemd,

The CP2 controller is outdated, but if you have the E1 chip inside the CP2, it should work
with the latest ASCOM driver. Check for the E1 chip.
http://www.astro-physics.info/tech_supp ... rolbox.htm

Regards,
========================================================================================

And thank you for coming back to my query.
I just checked my controller, an E chip is installed.
Is there a difference between the E and the E1 chip?

Best regards

========================================================================================

No difference for the 600E mount.

I’m not aware of any issues that the current AP V2 driver has when using the 600E mount.
It should be fine with any ASCOM compliant software. We’ve had no reported issues.
What specifically are you experiencing (or not experiencing) in mount control?

Regards,

========================================================================================

I guess we need someone with software knowledge to solve the problem.

Hi,

well, that's not 100% helpful yet, but hopefully you will get through to someone more technical in time.

I did a quick search for the error message shown in your log, and the only reference I found was this discussion

https://ap-gto.groups.io/g/main/topic/g ... 9261073?p=

Here the same 'No response or bad response' message shows up in an ASCOM log and the end user seems to be having serial port issues, so that may be an avenue to investigate.

cheers,

Robin

Hi,
Today I got an answer from AstroPhysics
================================================

Bernd,

I am very sorry. I do not see that my reply email went through.

According to our software person:

“According to the firmware revision documents on our web site, the commands in question were introduced in version F:
https://www.astro-physics.info/tech_sup ... pdf#page=4 “

It seems that you will not be able to use the CP2 for that procedure.

Regards,

================================================

Regards

Bernd