Gemini Control from Starry night Pro Plus 6

[sadia]

This is my first week with G11 and I am probably facing the first hardle of the many to come. I tried to connect to Gemini through Ascom Gemini Control from Starry night Pro Plus and was not successful.

I was pretty sure with cabling and port settings. Still I tried what was suggested in the manual and started the hand controller in Debug mode and tried to send few command from computer to the specific COM port. In the hand controller I can receive those sent from PC.

I am not sure what step should i take next to debug the issue. I wonder if Windows 7 is cause of the issue!

Does anyone have a any idea or thought on what might be going wrong?

Regards
Sad

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Sad

I have also just got a G11 with Gemini. The Gemini handset is a bit of a pain to learn but the Gemini can be controlled quite well from the a computer running The SKY 6 and Stellarium that I know of. The Sky 6 has a Gemini driver and Stellarium uses the LX200 driver. There is probably an ASCOM driver also but I have never needed one.

The Gemini needs to be started first. It will need a cold start first to enter the GMT Offset, date,time and location particulars then it will go through the warm start screen . How to do all this is in the manual. Down load it from Losmandy and print it out if you haven't already done so.

When the warm start has been completed you will have the opportunity to align on a bright star. When this point is reached the Gemini can be controlled from the computer from the RS232 port. If you have no RS232 port you will need a USB/RS232 adapter installed. The default port that this is installed on will probably COM3 or COM4. This can be changed to COM1 or COM2 via the control panel if you wish.

Make sure you make the cable with the correct connections (The LX200 cable uses different pins)

I am writing a Control program in QBasic that can address all the code protocol and make the Gemini do all sorts of things that are awkward from the handset. There is also a program called GCC you can buy that does the same thing. The program has a 30 trial period.

I have successfully controlled the Gemini from a computer running XP SP3, Laptop running XP SP3 and Vista SP1. I haven't tested Windows 7 but I expect it will be OK.

Basically once the warm start has completed and the RS232 cable is connected you can control the gemini from a planetarium program.

Barry

[allan gould]

mY GEMINI WILL NOT WORK WITH THE LATEST gEMINI SETUP FOR ascom. i HAD TO GO BACK TO THE PREVIOUS VERSION FOR IT TO WORK PROPERLY. iF YOU NEED THE FILE i CAN SEND IT TO YOU IF YOU pm ME YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS.

Sorry for the shouting - left my capslock on.

[Barrykgerdes]

You are probably a two finger typist like me and it is so easy to press the caps lock without noticing till you have typed a couple of sentences. Leaving the caps lock on is no where half as bad as typing in a page and hitting the wrong button and losing everything.

I think there has been a previous reference somewhere regarding problems with the latest version of ASCOM.

Baz

[JohnG]

There was a problem with Version 5 of ASCOM, it was quickly replaced with Version 5a, Version 5.5 has now been released.

The Gemini ASCOM driver, 4.2.27 will only work with the Level 4 version of the Gemini. I use this version and have had no problems whatsoever with any programs I use.

I have a number of the older Gemini drivers if you need one.

Cheers

[sadia]

Hi John,

My setup is as following
- ASCOM 5.5
- ASCOM Gemini driver, 4.2.27
- Starry night Pro Plus 6
- Windows 7

I received few earlier version of Gemini driver from Allan I will give them a go tonight though i doubt that the driver is the issue here. I will try a few diffrent things tonight to see how i go. I woould also give GCC trial copy a run to see the outcome. If GCC can connect that would atlease eliminate the possibility that somethings wrong in the hardware level.

Regards
Sad

[JohnG]

Hi Sad

I am asuming that you are running Version 4 or above of the Gemini, if you are using Version 3, the ASCOM driver you are using will not work.

GCC is a completely stand alone program, it dose not use ASCOM at all so to get into Starry Night, which I can't help you with, don't use it, you have to exit GCC.

If Starry Night has an ASCOM telescope selection, select Gemini Equiped Telescope and it should connect, if it wont connect, go into the Properties of the ASCOM driver and make sure the correct port etc is selected, you usually need to manually select the correct scope etc.

Cheers

[sadia]

Hi John,

Yep its Gemini Lvl 4.

I understand GCC is not ASCOM compatible and a seperate program which runs standalone. I would only try it to isolate the cause of the issue.

When trying to connect to Gemini through Starry night I have checked the COM Port, speed etc and I have manually selected the right telescope driver plugin.

Regards
Sad

[JohnG]

Ummmm

I don't know how you do your startup but I might suggest, with everything off, that you plug in the RS232 cable to both the computer and Gemini, start your computer, after everything is loaded, then start your Gemini.

This is the sequence I use and it works every time, thereagain, I use Star Atlas Pro and either The Sky 6 or CdC with the ASCOM interface.

Cheers

[Exfso]

I use star atlas pro same as John, and it controls the Gemini well. Great proggy and Australian as well. Oh yeah, a lot cheaper as well.

[sadia]

I did few more testing. Looks like one of my cable is dodgy. most probably serial to usb port converter cable. I am not 100% sure on it yet and need some more testing. I would probably give bintel a call tomorrow to see if i can drop by and test with one of their cable!

[Grahame]

Hi Guys,

just out of interest, what version of Gemini firmware are you all using?

Grahame.

[JohnG]

Level 4, V 1.04

Cheers

[sadia]

Level 4, V 1.04 as well

[Barrykgerdes]

When I made a cable I went through all the bits I had. I found all of those RS232 9 pin to RJ adaptors (the type that come with the Meade DS1 etc) and only had three wires (contacts) in the RJ socket and they were the wrong ones for a RJ cable suitable for the Gemini. I ended up using a standard RS232 plug and soldering the wires to the correct pins.

Barry

[sadia]

Issue has been solved. I kind of gambled and bought a second Usb to Serial from Jaycar. This solved the issue. Funny part is old cable would still work with my EQ6 and EQMOD! There must be some diffrence in the wiring!? Lesson learng "never trust the wire"

Thank you everyone for all the advice and help.

Regards
Sad