Stellarium and ASCOM with out StellariumScope

[SniffTheGlove]

Hello,

I have been given a one line reply by Alexander Wolf of Stellarium that the new interface written by Bogdan Marinov in Stellarium 12 can now work with ASCOM devices without needing StellariumScope. That's all I got.

I have looked for more details but can not find any, even the Stellarium Wiki is quite a few months out of date.

So I have started up my ASCOM and unparked the mount, checked everything was OK in CdC then shut CdC down. Started up Stellarium and went to the new Telescope Control Panel and tried to setup a new scope.

I put Com3 in as the serial port (where my EQDirect sits on) and in the dropdown list for mounts only about 8 listed there is no mention of ASCOM. There is a SkyWatcher SysScan so I chose that and then went to start the scope in the control panel. It just sits there saying stopped.

I tried different mounts and settings but none worked.

Anybody here got Stellarium running with ASCOM without StellariumScope on Version 12?

[Cornelius Varley]

Stellarium will probably not show Ascom as a mount. You will need to select the option "external software or remote computer" in the telescope configuration settings.

[SniffTheGlove]

If I select "external software or remote computer" then I have no way to specify how to connect to ASCOM or EQMod and it just sits there saying connecting....

[chrisshillito]

I wonder just how much ASCOM/telescope control functionality they've actually put in - Hopefully in supporting ASCOM they've gone beyond then minimum level of issuing gotos and reading position - EQMOD user's need that sync command and unless its there folks will still most likely need stellariumscope. Also stellariumscope resolves some of the J2000/JNOW issues that stellarium's standard telescope control introduced (though I think the plugin may already now have options for this?).

Chris.

[SniffTheGlove]

It has been raining here again but I retried last night but still nothing nothing.

Looks like it's back to StellariumScope but the only version to work with v0.12 is a time limited beta.

I wonder just how difficult it is to put ASCOM connectivity into Stellarium, they are obviously very talented programmers but can not under why they build a beautiful planetarium software but then only put a very limited amount of telescope control.

[Daggerstab]

Hello,

I have been given a one line reply by Alexander Wolf of Stellarium that the new interface written by Bogdan Marinov in Stellarium 12 can now work with ASCOM devices without needing StellariumScope. That's all I got.

I have looked for more details but can not find any, even the Stellarium Wiki is quite a few months out of date.

When was that and what did he said exactly? No ASCOM code has been released with 0.12.0. I know because it's still collecting dust in my branch...

And I'm really sorry about the state of the Wiki article. When I have time for Stellarium, it's spent writing code or answering users (like here), not documentation.

Status update on the ASCOM code: I have some basic functionality, but my involvement with Stellarium is hampered by lack of free time, not-powerful-enough computer and really slow Internet. (I would upload a test build with the new telescope control plug-in, but it would take me an hour to upload a 50 MB installer, and connection instability pretty much guarantees that it won't finish it in that time.)

I wonder just how much ASCOM/telescope control functionality they've actually put in - Hopefully in supporting ASCOM they've gone beyond then minimum level of issuing gotos and reading position - EQMOD user's need that sync command and unless its there folks will still most likely need stellariumscope. Also stellariumscope resolves some of the J2000/JNOW issues that stellarium's standard telescope control introduced (though I think the plugin may already now have options for this?).

It's slew/stop/sync at the moment, as far as I can remember. The intention was at least to make StellariumScope unnecessary.

I wonder just how difficult it is to put ASCOM connectivity into Stellarium, they are obviously very talented programmers but can not under why they build a beautiful planetarium software but then only put a very limited amount of telescope control.

First: Stellarium being a FOSS project driven by volunteers, "they" are not a monolith. People come and go, and they have different fields of expertise or foci of interest, and there are people who contribute code based on purposes they want to use Stellarium for. The original author was into 3D graphics and wanted to make a realistic representation of the sky. Telescope control was added later by another person. Then I came and made a GUI for the telescope control. And the time I could afford to spend on Stellarium has varied vastly over the last few years.

As for ASCOM itself, the problem is that it is based on a Microsoft technology - COM - that is available only on Windows. Stellarium is multi-platform and the framework on which it's based (Qt + MinGW on Windows) does not use COM. There's a way to interface COM objects like ASCOM drivers with Qt, but it's unpleasant and time-consuming. For me, it's also really hard to test - I don't have a telescope and using simulators is a bit taxing for my computer (netbook + Windows 7 + Stellarium = more choppy than a cheesy martial arts movie).

Another part of the explanation for the delay is that the code infrastructure was originally made only for one telescope control protocol - Stellarium's - and the target is to support three - Stellarium's, ASCOM and INDI. This requires re-writing some of it, and I've been stopped in mid-rewrite several times now. As a result, the code is a mess at the moment.

[chrisshillito]

Another part of the explanation for the delay is that the code infrastructure was originally made only for one telescope control protocol - Stellarium's - and the target is to support three - Stellarium's, ASCOM and INDI.

The original stellarium telescope interface using a socket connection for external drivers to pick up on seemed to me to be the ideal solution. Yes, you would still be reliant on likes of stellariumscope to actually do the scope control but it keeps the platform specific stuff out of stellarium. All stellarium ever needed to do was provide extensions to the socket interface for the likes of sync, stop, track, park etc. and provide a user interface to support them. I'm sure plenty of folks would have come out of the woodwork to write drivers for all the scope types out there - just as they did with stellariumscope.

Chris.

[SniffTheGlove]

The reply from Alexander Wolf was...

Bogdan works for INDI and ASCOM interfaces within Stellarium.

The reply was in relation to my post on the 13th Feb in the thread http://sourceforge.net/p/stellarium/discussion/278769/thread/f85ed4a2/

At first I thought that Bogdan was a particular plug-in I needed to get, only after reading a bit more via Google I found out it was a person.

[Daggerstab]

The original stellarium telescope interface using a socket connection for external drivers to pick up on seemed to me to be the ideal solution. Yes, you would still be reliant on likes of stellariumscope to actually do the scope control but it keeps the platform specific stuff out of stellarium. All stellarium ever needed to do was provide extensions to the socket interface for the likes of sync, stop, track, park etc. and provide a user interface to support them. I'm sure plenty of folks would have come out of the woodwork to write drivers for all the scope types out there - just as they did with stellariumscope.

Chris.

The "original" interface is still in use. I haven't integrated my code yet. For the last several years, I haven't noticed anyone coming out of the woodwork to offer new drivers or an extension of the basic protocol. What I've noticed is a lot of users asking "why don't you support telescope X" or "why it can only slew to objects" or "why do I need to use StellariumScope". Do you really think that starting a separate driver executable from a command-line console is user-friendly?

The reply from Alexander Wolf was...

Bogdan works for INDI and ASCOM interfaces within Stellarium.

The reply was in relation to my post on the 13th Feb in the thread http://sourceforge.n...hread/f85ed4a2/

At first I thought that Bogdan was a particular plug-in I needed to get, only after reading a bit more via Google I found out it was a person.

Innapropriate tense and preposition - "works for" should have been "is working on". I also find it hard to communicate with Alex sometimes, as my English is much better than my Russian. And yes, I am Bogdan Marinov.

[SniffTheGlove]

For the last several years, I haven't noticed anyone coming out of the woodwork to offer new drivers or an extension of the basic protocol. What I've noticed is a lot of users asking "why don't you support telescope X" or "why it can only slew to objects" or "why do I need to use StellariumScope".

That is because their are really talented people out there programming and on the other side of the fence you have thousands of users using said programs and these users look at ways to make said software better by asking for requests.

It's a great talent you and the others have got there. Just like Chris and others with EQMod

[chrisshillito]

The "original" interface is still in use. I haven't integrated my code yet. For the last several years, I haven't noticed anyone coming out of the woodwork to offer new drivers or an extension of the basic protocol. What I've noticed is a lot of users asking "why don't you support telescope X" or "why it can only slew to objects" or "why do I need to use StellariumScope". Do you really think that starting a separate driver executable from a command-line console is user-friendly?

Stellarium development may be a little too 'niche' for many volunteer developers but I think ASCOM has shown that if you provide a reasonably comprehensive interface based on a 'standard' technology developers will soon step in to take full advantage of it, using whatever skills they have. The beauty of a socket level interface that it is less restrictive on the skill sets needed for developers to get involved.

Once you've gone down the road of putting mount support into stellarium you're forever going to be plagued those "why doesn't it support mount X" questions. Just respond by telling them that if they pay for it, you'll do it. When folks appreciate the true effort/ cost of the things they demand they tend to become far more accepting of compromises (like stellariumscope).

For me the main issue with mount control via stellarium has never been that I need stellariumscope in the loop. I accept that as an acceptable price for stellarium's platform independence. Where stellarium control is lacking is that I can't initiate a slew/sync from the mouse but rather have to fumble around hitting ctrl key combinations. I'm sure a plugin to do that is possible (pretty much already there) without needing to pull ASCOM support in. If the socket interface were extended to include sync and stop commands I'm quite confident stellariumscope would promptly be changed accordingly (and if not I'd soon knock out my own version).

Chris.

[SniffTheGlove]

Anyway, the new version of StellariumScope will be out in a few days time I have been told by the author Jon

[IanL]

Where stellarium control is lacking is that I can't initiate a slew/sync from the mouse but rather have to fumble around hitting ctrl key combinations.

+1 for that Chris; I found it a bit of a hassle doing the initial set-up between EQMOD/StellariumScope/Stellarium, but once I figured it out, it works reliably. Might be easier for beginners if there were fewer things in the installation and config process, but frankly when you're paying $0 for such good software it's not the end of the world. (Plenty of paid-for software has caused me far more issues down the years).

I concur that the only thing I would really like to change is the ability to either choose my own slew/sync keys in Stellarium. Trying to find ctrl-number key in the dark on a small laptop keyboard is not ideal. Either a key-remapping utility or even an on-screen set of controls that one could drive with a mouse would help on that front.

One thing I have been planning to to for over a year (but not got round to) is to try this:

http://www.autohotkey.com/

Apparently it allows macros to be created to switch applications and automate keystrokes, mouse input and joystick (and I would assume by extension gampad) control. I will see if I can find a way to link my X-box controller buttons to push the relevant ctrl-key combinations to Stellarium.

[IanL]

Okay done it now, works like a charm for me. Started a new topic with details here:

[SniffTheGlove]

Where stellarium control is lacking is that I can't initiate a slew/sync from the mouse but rather have to fumble around hitting ctrl key combinations.

I agree too this would be nice, maybe an online control panel like the Oculars one. Is this possible Bogdan when you come to put your code into the main branch?

[dilipsharan]

For those wanting to set up the ASCOM driver in Stellarium here are the steps which I have just followed. Hope this is of help going forward:-

Installation process:- 
1) Download "Stellarium v0.19.3 " or newer for the NEW ASCOM plugin for telescopes
2) Start Stellarium 
Press F2 to open the Configuration Menu in Stellarium 
3) Select the Plug-in Tab
4) Scroll down and Select the "Telescope Control" plug-in
5) If the "Load at Start-Up" Option is NOT ticked. Then Tick it and save settings and restart Stellarium 
6) Press the "Configure" button in the "Telescope Control" Menu
7) Click the "Add Telescope" button. 3rd Button from the left bottom [Hover over the button to see the text]
8) Select "ASCOM" in the "Telescope Controlled by" section
9) In the "Telescope Properties" section [You may need to scroll up/ down to see all options]:
- Enter a Name - Example - "EQMOD SIMULATION"
10) In the "ASCOM Settings" menu click the "Choose ASCOM Telescope" button and follow the prompts in the ACOM Telescope section to select the required ASCOM Driver
11) Click "OK" button to finish setup
12) Select connect and you should see the relevant ASCOM linked telescope control panel