Sync moves mount with one camera but not another

[SteveInNZ]

I have an imaging scope with an ASI1600MC (FoV 0.9 x 0.7 degrees) and a guidescope QHY5LII-M (FoV 2.2 x 1.7) on an Az-Gti in equatorial mode connected by serial/usb.
SharpCap v4.1.11351.0 (64 bit) on Win10 Pro.

If I platesolve and sync with the guidescope, it solves, syncs and moves the mount to the correct position.

If I change the selected camera to the imaging one, it platesolves, syncs and says that it's moving the mount but the mount doesn't move.

The guidescope and main scope aren't aligned so there should be movement between the two solutions. The only change is to select the other camera and adjust the exposure/gain accordingly. This repeats if I go back and forth between the two. The guide camera always moves and the main camera doesn't.

Log is attached.


Steve.

[admin]

Hi Steve,

odd... From the logs, it looks like the mount is ignoring the sync command when the 1600MC camera is in use. For instance, I can find this in the log

Code: Select all

Debug  	23:14:56.511603	#1 	Notification (Status=OK): Plate solve succeeded, position found to be RA=05:38:32,Dec=-04:39:37 (JNOW, offset of 0.87 degrees), field of view is 0.9322x0.7048 degrees, pixel size 0.7 arcsec/pixel, up is 294.4 degrees E of N.				in void SharpCap.UI.NotificationViewModel.DisplayMessage(NotificationMessage message)
Info   	23:14:56.511882	#1 	Field solved to RA=05:38:32,Dec=-04:39:37, field Size {Width=0.9322064, Height=0.70476085}								in async Task<bool> SharpCap.ViewModels.PlateSolveAndResync.SolveImplAsync(bool gotFrame, IFrameToSolve tmpFile, CancellationTokenSource tokenSource, IMount model, SizeF? fieldOfView, PostSolveActions action)
Debug  	23:14:56.941439	#34	Finished ZWO Exposure of 2457.6ms, gotFrame = True																		in bool SharpCap.Cameras.ASI.ASICameraProxy.GetFrameData(int timeout, BufferFrame frame, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
Debug  	23:14:56.963686	#34	Starting ZWO Exposure of 2457.6ms																						in bool SharpCap.Cameras.ASI.ASICameraProxy.StartExposure()
Info   	23:14:57.512307	#1 	Before Sync mount is at RA=05:36:38,Dec=-05:23:02																		in async Task<bool> SharpCap.ViewModels.PlateSolveAndResync.SolveImplAsync(bool gotFrame, IFrameToSolve tmpFile, CancellationTokenSource tokenSource, IMount model, SizeF? fieldOfView, PostSolveActions action)
Info   	23:14:58.949863	#1 	After Sync mount is at RA=05:36:38,Dec=-05:23:02	

Note that the before and after sync positions are the same, which shouldn't be happening - after the sync it should be reading the co-ordinates found in the plate solving operation. Once the sync is ignored, the 'GOTO' that is commanded after the sync does nothing, because it will be commanding a GOTO the co-ordinates that were current before the sync, but with no sync those co-ordinates are still current, so nothing to do from the mount point of view.

In fact, checking through the log searching for 'After sync', I can't see any cases where the before/after co-ordinates are different, so I'm not sure how it works at all...

A couple of possibilities spring to mind here...

* Mount settings - if you have some sort of multi-point pointing model active or enabled then sync will not just put the mount co-ordinates to the sync co-ordinates, in fact it may not do much at all. You could try using the 'offset goto' option in the SharpCap plate solving settings to work around, although beware that you can use that once after each GOTO (if you use it multiple times without moving the mount, the results will not be what you expect)

* Update frequency of the mount co-ordinates into SharpCap - perhaps SharpCap reads the position too soon after sending the sync command to see the results. However, in the log you can see that the 'before slew' co-ordinates that are recorded a second or so later for each solve+sync are the same, so not sure about this one.

cheers,

Robin