No telescope control using Stellarium

[PJH34]

I have recently bought myself a Skywatcher EQ80 telescope with an EQ5 mount and SyncScan hand controller

The controller is set to PC Direct Mode. My laptop is brand new with Windows 7 and the serial port to USB converter is installed on Com 3. I am using Celestron NexStar compatible.

I have no telescope control with Ctrl 1, the number for my telescope. When clicking on an object either an oscillating square or rotating circle is shown. Which one indicates the telescope control.

Why does my Telescope control keep going to 'stopped'? It goes back to 'connected' if I re-plug the USB.

Is there something else I need to do.

Thank you to anyone of you can help.

Peter Hayward

[Kevdan]

Have you installed all the ascom platform and eqmod drivers ? and have you configured it on the menu of stellarium ?

Kev.

[The Sailor]

First of all go into Control Panel and see what Port # is being used by the mount, check in the telescope plugin configuration on Stellarium and ensure the port is the same, click the box below to show a target on the screen, save and close down Stellarium. On the mount do not use PC Direct Mode, that is ASCOM only, just hit Esc and return to normal screen. Start tellarium and if all is well you have a target on the screen where your mount is pointing, click on a target above the horizon and press Ctrl and 1 at the same time and your mount will slew.

I am using Vista so that is how I get to control the mount, Win 7 I hope is same as far as Control Panel, hope all this helps.

Jim

[The Sailor]

Kev, Stellarium does not require ASCOM, it works as a standalone controller.

Jim

[earth titan]

At the risk of completely derailing your thread, I would forget stellarium for scope control. Have a.look at Cart de Ciel instead. Much more functional for scope control although it does require ASCOM drivers.

Sent from my X10i using Tapatalk 2

[x6gas]

At the risk of completely derailing your thread, I would forget stellarium for scope control. Have a.look at Cart de Ciel instead. Much more functional for scope control although it does require ASCOM drivers.

Sent from my X10i using Tapatalk 2

...but so long as the Serial to USB interface is working correctly and the right COM port has been identified there is no reason why Stellarium can't be used to control the mount. I much prefer Stellarium for this.

The one complaint I would have is that sometimes Stellarium will allow you connect and stop mount control from the configuration dialogue box when in reality the Serial to USB and / or COM port configuration is not correct (and therefore scope control won't actually work).

A couple of questions for Peter:

1) Are you sure your serial to USB interface is compatible with Windows 7?

2) Are you able to see the serial to USB interface in Device Manager? (in Win 7 go to Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Device Manager). It should be under Ports (COM & LPT) - click on the arrow to the left to expand and you should see something like "Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COM4)".

3) The COM4 bit tells you what to put into Stellarium

You may find that the COM port number is specific to the USB port that you are using on the computer and / or that you need to install the USB-to-Serial interface driver for each USB hub.

Let us know how you get on as I'm sure we can sort this out...

[chrisshillito]

PC-Direct is EQMOD only (it has nothing to do with ASCOM other than EQMOD is an ASCOM driver that happens to use pc-direct).

If all you want is very basic mount control then forget any mention of PC-Direct and ASCOM. Just connect to the syscan using the stellarium telescope plugin and nexstar driver.

Should you subsequenly wish to go down the ASCOM and EQMOD route (for more advanced PC control of your mount) then you would need a free interface app called stellariumscope in order to trick stellarium into supporting ASCOM (which it otherwise doesn't do).

Chris.

[Cornelius Varley]

I have recently bought myself a Skywatcher EQ80 telescope with an EQ5 mount and SyncScan hand controller

The controller is set to PC Direct Mode. My laptop is brand new with Windows 7 and the serial port to USB converter is installed on Com 3. I am using Celestron NexStar compatible.

I have no telescope control with Ctrl 1, the number for my telescope. When clicking on an object either an oscillating square or rotating circle is shown. Which one indicates the telescope control.

Why does my Telescope control keep going to 'stopped'? It goes back to 'connected' if I re-plug the USB.

Is there something else I need to do.

Thank you to anyone of you can help.

Peter Hayward

If you are using a Synscan V3 handset you need to select the Synscan V3 option and don't select the PC-Direct mode on the handset.

Peter

[PJH34]

H., You guys are great. I have just set up the tripod and EQ5 in my bedroom with the laptop to try out your suggestions. All I had to do was leave the hand controller without setting it to PC Mode. Twice I tried contacting Stellarium without any reply. I bought everything in March and have only had three clear night when I've been able to set it up outside. So here's for clear sky's when I can fit my Nikon D90 with it's computer controll to the telescope and, perhaps, get some decent photograph. Thank's to all of you for taking the time to solve my problem.

Peter Hayward

[x6gas]

H., You guys are great. I have just set up the tripod and EQ5 in my bedroom with the laptop to try out your suggestions. All I had to do was leave the hand controller without setting it to PC Mode. Twice I tried contacting Stellarium without any reply. I bought everything in March and have only had three clear night when I've been able to set it up outside. So here's for clear sky's when I can fit my Nikon D90 with it's computer controll to the telescope and, perhaps, get some decent photograph. Thank's to all of you for taking the time to solve my problem.

Peter Hayward

I feel your pain with respect to the weather Peter!

...and you are doing exactly the right thing it setting up indoors and making sure everything is working. There really is nothing worse, in my opinion, than finally getting a rare clear night and spending it sorting out a glitch with your set-up that could have been resolved earlier.

To that end, if you've not done so already I would set your scope up in daylight and test out that you can connect the camera to the scope, achieve focus on something a long way away (distant telegraph poles or electricity towers are favourites) and make sure that your method for taking photos works (whether that's by software or a remote shutter controller etc).

Glad you got the scope control working though!

[x6gas]

Twice I tried contacting Stellarium without any reply.

In fairness they spend massive amounts of time developing this and then give it away for free so they can't really provide support. By far the best thing is to ask on here first; it's pretty rare that someone has an issue that another member hasn't had before or doesn't know how to resolve!