shirva

Scope doctor for sgl

11 hours ago, steppenwolf said:

My keyboard skills are not much better than my bagpipe skills so this may not be the right direction 😱

Canny beat the pipes 😁

Another great broadcast tonight,, well done folks

8 hours ago, steppenwolf said:

You are perhaps the only SGL member who might think that Davy ! 🤣

Better to be a shepard  than a sheep 😁 not be laughing if I get you up here playing with the band at Stirling Castle 👍

On 26/05/2020 at 08:08, steppenwolf said:

Thanks, Davy, pleased you like it!

 

Seen the start on the video,, your piping was bang on,,  👍

I started in 2011,, my partner was diagnosed with cancer,, bit of a body blow to anyone who has a loved one who has it,, I played in a pipe band and quit to be with her,, but she new I could not just sit around watching her all the time,,, she would have throttled me. 

I thought what can I do,, and astronomy came in to the picture,,  I thought wouldn't it be good if you could get a computer one,,, lol,,, somebody beat me to it,, was totally new at this 😁. I bought an etx 80 and after finding Sgl and cloudy nights,, I learned more, bought piles of books and e books,, finally got a webcam and was blown Away with what could be achieved,, I got aperture fever and wanted to try astrophotography,, so ended up with an eq3 Pro and a Canon 400d, but weather and clouds are bad in my area,, and I then looked at video astronomy,, got a Samsung scb2000, modded it and been doing video astronomy ever since,, mainly do live/near live viewing,, I like looking at the moon,, nice way to relax.. 

But I like annoying old stash as well about raspberry pi 😂

On 25/05/2020 at 13:07, Grant said:

We haven’t quite decided the ‘where’ yet but the ‘when’ will be later this week. It will be announced with link details once available.

Fantastic grant,, I missed Steve on the pipes,, could not figure out why I didn't have audio,, be good to get a link,,  I advertised it in astronomy Scotland Facebook group,, but still astounds me the amount of folk still asking the same questions,, would be great just to be able to give them a link to watch Steve's broadcast and it would be a great learning tool,, 

A Sgl utube channel to store the planned broadcasts,, is more than likely to be looked at by you guys,, as always good forward motion for astronomy,, well done guys 

Fantastic broadcast  by  Steve,, really enjoyed it,, certainly a good way to spend a Sunday night,, fantastic idea to have this and many thanks to FLO for being it's sponsor, 

Looking forward to next week's broadcast,, should try and keep this as a regular fixture. 

I've been asked if there is anywhere it can be watched again. 

Davy 

Hi Steve,, I find there is slight differences  going between many of the software I  use,,  it's just practice,, don't let folk kid you on it's not all plain sailing,, there are some nights  I use  zwo, byeos, sharpcap,, sometimes the basic of Software will do the job.. 

Looking forward to the gaffers talk

Davy 

I have the kit in your picture,, I would like to add in a weather station  function,, temp, ect  at some stage,, 

Thanks,, I would recommend getting the higher spec one with more ram ect,,   this was just a learning curve to see if the lowest spec would work,, and it does but I would like to see how a better spec one would do the business,, getting one with 4gb of ram would be interesting,, still waiting on my case coming,, and allow me to try it out more, 

Well done to both of you,, and great news if you can do a collaboration together, 👌

Hi,, good to see developers come in and show what they are doing and more importantly asking how it can be made better,, 

Will skip the raspberry pi camera mod,, the camera not as good as I thought for the level we get into,, pity

I'm really happy with what I have,, my goal was 

Portable set up, easy set up

Remote desktop with software I like, this has been achieved with using the lattepanda,, better suited to me than the raspberry pi,,

(no offence to anyone using this,, I bought all the gear and tried it,, so it's my personal opinion the panda suits me better) 

The cable hasn't been a bad buy from FLO, it has allowed me to connect mount to the panda and with the synscan on the panda I get to control the mount, camera focuser all from a remote desktop on my laptop,, I'm chuffed,, cut down on portable equipment and not needing a pile of cables to laptop. 

If the guys at flow have a look into it,, great,, if they and cable manufacturer come up with a solution,, fantastic,, will improve sales and give us folk another toy to improve our hobby. 

The project,, was something to try during lock down,, and it kept my mind off what is happening around the world, we all have came across a new danger to our existence on the planet,, this has been something to try,, get folk talking on this group and my own,, the forums have been quiet,,  folk trying new things is good,, if it helps the hobby great,, 

At ieast it gives folks new ideas,, maybe even save money,, 

Stay safe folks,, I'm back to work on Monday after being in lock down for five weeks,, 

But already looking at next project,, what to use two raspberry pi4 4gb boards on, 

Raspberry pi have released a new camera for £50 and it might be something to try in astronomy,, Gina and a few others are looking at its possibilities. 

No hassle to me using Ascom and synscan,, and everything works OK,, was a astronomy experiment 😁 one for developers to look at,, I'm happy with what I have working and does exactly what I want it to do,, worked out better than raspberry pi 4 set up. 

I've took the panda out the mix and it's on a decent Windows 10 and has exact same   failure as the panda. 

CdC is switching on eqmod,, but not switching on telescope in cdc,, missing command somewhere,,,, got to be,,.. 

Need to Wait and see if anyone else goes this route,, cloudy nights had a thread,  somebody had same prob,, no answers,, folk looked to be content using the synscan app,, and folk used the raspberry pi as well,, 

 I retried Ascom driver in to the lattepanda,, still the same.. As the photos show,,

I connect telescope,, overflow warning appears. 

I connect scope,, eqmod window appears

I change ra and Dec motor speed to 4  eqmod control buttons move scope

I move eq mode window to right,, CdC connect telescope button still red,, 

Scope icon on menu red as well even though scope will move wlth eqmod buttons. 

 Right mouse skymap,, no sync cdc to scope option and will not slew or goto,, telescope not connected warning appears,,  egmod still can move scope. 

I've tried everything I can think of,, can set my heq5 up without any problem using this kit,, only difference is the mount cable and driver,, getting tired now 

  One thing to try,, and if it works I will cry,, 

In cdc,, the mount is set as heq5/6,, when I click connect,, it brings up the  eq mod panel

Change ra and Dec rate from 1 to 4 and the North, South, East, wet buttons move the mount,,, but if I move the eq panel to other side of the desktop,, the cdc connect telescope panel shows mount connect button on red,,  and when I try the slew or try and do a goto is says mount not connected,, but eqmod  can still control mount. 

Eqmod and cdc not talking 

2 hours ago, vlaiv said:

😁,, excellent,, you've all caught up with me now, 😁,, the cable in grant's link,, from FLO,, is the one I bought,  the azgti Ascom driver was installed to use via cdc, Ascom, eq mod controlling  the mount,, CdC connects as heq5,, thit gives an overflow message on telescope connection,, both cdc and eqmod telescope direction buttons work,, the problem is no goto slew, 

The overflow is as you said stash to do with the gearing,, I do not believe its just a case of changing this value,, as it has been noted in other posts that after a while tracking errors occur,, I believe its handshake protocol not being correct,, 

Believing I am correct,, I decided to address the challenge another way,, trying the synscan app,, 

The azgti had to go to serial mode,, to try and get comms via the synscan,, otherwise I was back to stage one,, back to my phone hot spot linked to lattepanda and,, azgti control via a second device with WiFi,, as WiFi shuts off my hot spot. 

When the az gti is in serial mode,, it works the synscan perfectly,,  for now this is ideal,, as I can operate the full mount via remote desktop,, just not with CdC at present,, but this is day one and,, its a workable set up,, 

If someone has done this,, the way I've done it,, love to chat about it,, I done plenty of searches on the subject and,, got as far as you guys have got,, but I was convinced I'd get a working system and I have,, certainly no disappointment with me,, I have given folk the chance to take it further using a latteprnda,, 

Not to say I'm giving up 😁

21 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Can't you use wifi with ASCOM driver?

I controlled my AzGti via wifi from laptop with ease. You can't control camera and other bits that way, but for mount - you don't need any special hardware.

I'm running full kit wifi,, this is my work around all this,, control of mount wasn't my problem 

Problem is on eqmod side of things,, overflow message.  Don't ask how or why,, just an educated guess. 

Loaded Skywatcher windows app on the panda, changed the azgti to serial mode, connections available, az and eq,, 

Eq chosen,, set lat and long,, two star alignment,, ok. 

Slew to an object,, ok

All via remote desktop,, problem appears to be eq mod/cdc  not  Co operating. 

I can live with what I have,, mount control via synscan on laptop,, byeos, sharpcap, asi studio and hitecastro focus control, all wireless to my laptop,, 

 Mmm bit premature,, have eqmod control of telescope but no slew to target on cdc,,  bit of a nuisance,, see if can sort this out..