Mount choice for C11 Edge - Sharpcap compatibility

[Moonstruck]

I have a C11 Edge telescope on order which I will use for both deep sky and planetary imaging. I have an EQ6 mount now, but from what I understand it may be undersized for this OTA for doing deep sky imaging. So I am now considering getting a bigger mount.

After doing some reading on the subject there are many mounts that could suffice with the C11, but four in particular stand out as possibilities: the CGX-L, Losmandy G11G, Ioptron CEM 70 and the Skywatcher CQ350. Are each of these mounts compatible with Sharpcap? Do Sharpcap's hardware installation menus easily accept any of these without any issues or the need for additional software or plug-ins? If there any compatibility issues with any of these please let me know. Also if there is a mount I missed that you think would be a great choice for use with a C11 (and also compatible with Sharpcap) please let me know. Thanks!

[admin]

Hi,

I have no idea about the Losmandy, but all of the others definitely have ASCOM drivers that can be used to drive them from within SharpCap (I expect the Losmandy does too - just no direct experience).

Having an ASCOM driver is enough to get you started, but not all ASCOM drivers are created equal and they may have interesting limitations/bugs/glitches that make life difficult for you. What I know from recent experience

* iOptron - current ASCOM drivers have no way for SharpCap to adjust the tracking rate between lunar/solar/sidereal - this has to be done with the handset (or potentiatlly iOptron software on the PC)
* Celestron - there have been issues with CPWI updates having bugs that have broken things (like sync after plate solving). Not sure how fully these have been resolved. Also issues with timeouts in CPWI and
* Skywatcher - there have been issues with the Synscan app and ASCOM driver (various ones on the forums)

I think this all goes to show that there are likely to be gremlins and compromises (sadly) with each of these options in the amount of control that you get. I would also say that having a wired connection between the PC and the mount seems to be vastly better than having a WIFI or Bluetooth connection in terms of reliability, and when you are spending that sort of money you are probably looking for reliability!

cheers,

Robin

[Moonstruck]

Thanks, I appreciate the info. I am not sure which of these mounts I will buy (if any). I am waiting to see how the guiding works with my current EQ6 mount and the C11. If it works ok I may just stay with the EQ6.

EQMOD has worked well for me using Sharpcap so far, so if I need another mount I am leaning toward the skywatcher CQ350.

Thanks again.

[admin]

Hi,

I use my EQ6 (belt mod version) at a high load level (3 telescopes on it) and it performs pretty well, even for the 1.8m focal length of my 6" classical cassegrain. Of course the C11 pushes the focal length out to nearly double that...

EQMOD is still my ASCOM driver for the Skywatcher mount, however the EQMOD project seems to have ground to a halt with no recent updates or significant development as far as I can see. The bulk of the code is written in Visual Basic 6, which has been out-of-date since 2002 and there is no real upgrade path that doesn't involve a rewrite. I think that in time I will have to change to some other option

cheers,

Robin

[NeilG]

Robin,
if you're still using EQMOD, you might want to take a look at Green Swamp Server (GSS) as an alternative. I switched from EQMOD to drive my EQ8 via sharpcap/carte du ciel a couple of years ago - no problems so far.

Neil

[admin]

Hi Neil,

thanks for that - I had heard about GSS previously, but until recently had no incentive to change as EQMOD just worked for me. Then I had an evening where my observatory PC decided to boot from the old SSD drive not the new one. By the time I noticed, I had moved the mount and I made the mistake of rebooting back to the proper SSD without homing the mount. At this point I was in trouble because the config files for EQMOD on the old drive knew the mount was offset from the home position, but the config files on the correct drive thought it was in the home position. Took about an hour of Google searches, tinkering, editing config files, etc to get everything back in order

So yes, I think I might give GSS a go soon. Nice that it has a simulator as I have used the EQMOD simulator quite a bit in the past

cheers,

Robin

[Moonstruck]

Robin, another related question. For whatever mount I buy I will need to enter its settings into the hardware set-up tab in Sharpcap. Will Sharpcap remember these settings every time I connect the mount? Can I switch between my EQ6-R-Pro and the new mount without going into the hardware tab every time to change the settings?

[Jean-Francois]

Hello,

For long time ago, I used EQMOD, but today I still use the SynScan 1.19.20.
I know that a new version exist, but until today I have each time some problems with the 2.xx version and my EQ8 mounts.

I used sometimes the GSS. I did some beta test with it.
Why I did not used it ? ... first reason, GSS has no 1, 2 or 3 stars alignment. And it has no Polar Alignment method.
The advantage with the SynScan is: it possible to select the 1 or 2 stars from a list and then the mount starts the alignment.
Second reason is the Home function. One of my EQ8 mounts is fixed outside, but not parked. I can not park it while I need to move the tube for covering the equipment. The second EQ8 is mobile ... and so never Polar aligned.
The Home of the SynScan 1.19.20 is very quick on both axis at the same time and it is most of the time sufficient precise for having the first star visible. The Home on the SynScan 2.xx is not working properly. Sometime only one axis is moving, sometime no axis. The precision is all the time less than with the SynScan 1.19.20. The Home in the GSS is working, but it is very slow. The precision is sufficient, but less than with the SynScan 1.19.20.

One very important point if you do some test between the SynScan and the GSS software. The Home of one software is not compatible with the other.
So if you do some tests with one software and then you want to test the other software, the best is to switch off the mount and restart.

Other point is the correct settings of the serial connection ... some (new) software/mount expect 115200 bauds, other only 9600.
If you do not know that, you can have several hours of search.

Concerning the simulator ... the SynScan software(s) have a simulator too.

Additional point concerning the SynScan software ... I lost more than one hour during the preparation of the occultation of Betelgeuse in December.
I did the standard 2 stars alignment followed by the Polar alignment with the SynScan software. First I forgot to change the location coordinates . Then I changed the location coordinates and restart the 2 stars alignment followed by the Polar alignment. At the end it was not working. After looking the settings, the coordinates were back to my home coordinates. I changed it again and do all the process ... at the end, the coordinates were back to my home. (Note I was around 1500 km in the south). On my first EQ8 mount, I unplugged the computer and then I did the alignment manually with the hand controller. For my second EQ8 mount, I simply uninstalled the SynScan software and then reinstalled it. The first coordinates were then the correct one. So if you have this similar problem ... the solution is: delete the "Settings.txt" file from the SynScan directory.

Good evening,
Jean-Francois

[admin]

Hi,

@Moonstruck - you can use the /instance command line option to make 2 or more shortcuts on the desktop that will run SharpCap with alternate settings (one for the new mount and one for the old). See https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.1/#Comman ... 0Arguments

@Jean-Francois - I haven't yet tried GSS on the real sky, but have installed on my indoor PC in simulator mode. It does look like it has custom park locations like EQMOD does (when I had a large Newtonian on the mount, I had to set custom park to horizontal in EQMOD as otherwise the roof couldn't close!). Since my setup is permanent pier mounted, I don't really have to worry about star align - just park at the end of one night and unpark the next time. If the pointing is a bit off then plate solving fixes it.

cheers,

Robin