Argo Navis controlled via iPhone/SkyFi success

[kustard (Simon)]

Thanks Chris, no need to be sorry

I ended up grabbing one of those belkin iPhone car chargers and a lead for the SkyFi and when the weather is decent enough I'll try then out completely. It all works nicely on my very sky limited balcony and back courtyard (damned townhouse dwellings *chuckle*).

[NJB (Noel)]

Hi Everyone. I have am Argo Navis successfully working on a SkyWatcher 12" collapsible dob. I also have SkyVoyager on an iPhone, and a SkyFi. Somehow I am not getting everything working right. I have done a successful align on the AN. I've set the baud rate to 38400 on both AN and SkyFi. I can connect to the SkyFi with the iPhone.

But in SkyVoyager when I press connect, it seems to connect, but all I ever get is a green circle at Zenith. Moving the telescope doesn't change the crosshairs in SkyVoyager. I had the serial set to navis, and tried setting it to meade, but nothing changes.

I am obviously missing something simple, but can't see it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Noel

P.S. I have been trying to read the manuals for each, but as I said, I'm not seeing something simple and obvious.

[gary]

Originally Posted by NJB

I had the serial set to navis, and tried setting it to meade, but nothing changes.

I am obviously missing something simple, but can't see it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Noel,

Thanks for the post.

In order for the planetarium program and Argo Navis to successfully intercommunicate
one needs to specify to both which telescope protocol is to be used and which
serial communications rate (i.e. the Baud rate).

Argo Navis supports a variety of telescope protocol emulations.
One of the most commonly supported protocols for planetarium programs is
the Meade protocol. If the Argo Navis STARTUP protocol is chosen to be 'meade'
then it will emulate a Meade LX-200 device and just about every planetarium
program in existence supports that protocol.

Cutting to the chase, recommend you perform the following -
Dial up MODE SETUP, SETUP SERIAL.
Select the serial port your SkyFi device is plugged into it (either 1 or 2).
Set a BAUD rate of 9600 for that port.
Set a STARTUP command of 'meade' for that port.
Press EXIT to save the changes to non-volatile memory.
Then power the Argo Navis OFF and then power it ON again.
This will ensure the new STARTUP command starts.
On the planetarium side, select a telescope type of Meade LX-200
(if there is a selection of a generic LX-200 and a LX-200 GPS, choose the generic).
Set the communications speed to be 9600.
Use whatever dialog the program provides to establish a connection.
The planetarium program and the Argo Navis will then begin to communicate.
Before you perform an alignment, the Argo Navis will output a default
RA of zero hours, minutes and seconds and zero degrees Dec. This may be
below your current horizon and may not display. Once you perform a valid
alignment, you should obtain the ability for the planetarium to show where your
scope is pointing as you move the scope.

Best Regards

Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Phone +61-2-9457-9593
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au

[NJB (Noel)]

Hi Gary.

Thanks for your help! A couple more bits of the puzzle have now been sorted out for me thanks to you. I also was missing some obvious setting up on the iPhone, and was running SkyVoyager in demo mode. Duh! And now the clouds have rolled in and I can't detect any stars at all. At least I have now made progress, and I am sure as soon as some stars appear (whether later tonight or later next week if I remember the forecasts correctly), I am sure I can now get it working.

Thanks again.
Noel

[NJB (Noel)]

Hi Gary (and anybody else who can help). It is clear here, so I have another chance to get this working.

I have set the Argo Navis Serial 2 to 9600 and Meade, then rebooted, then aligned on Acrux and Antares. I checked the alignment by going to Saturn via the AN Catalog function.

Then I set SkyFi to 9600 baud. Then SkyVoyager on the iPhone to Meade LX200 Classic and Dobsonian mount. Then I pressed connect, and it seems to connect, but the crosshairs are pointing at the North Celestial Pole when I have the scope pointing at the Zenith. When I move the scope the crosshairs move but always as if the Zenith is the NCP. I don't know what to try next to fix this.

Any help appreciated.
Noel

[NJB (Noel)]

I have just discovered that after doing an align with the Argo Navis, then connecting iPhone SkyVoyager via SkyFi, the AN gets stuffed up. My location jumps from 153 degrees East to 206 degrees E on the AN, and when I select an object, the guide information is correct for the display in Sky Voyager, but not in reality. For example, the AN will guide me to say, Saturn, which SkyVoyager will show me pointing to, but in reality I am nowhere near Saturn in the sky.

I corrected my location in AN ot the correct co-ordinates, but next time I connect with SkyFi, it changes back. I also checked the location in SkyVoyager, and it is correct (unless I am just not seeing something obvious).

Put simply, at this time I don't understand what is going on. Maybe I should be putting this question to the Carinasoft Yahoo group instead of here.

[gary]

Originally Posted by NJB

Hi Gary (and anybody else who can help). It is clear here, so I have another chance to get this working.

I have set the Argo Navis Serial 2 to 9600 and Meade, then rebooted, then aligned on Acrux and Antares. I checked the alignment by going to Saturn via the AN Catalog function.

Then I set SkyFi to 9600 baud. Then SkyVoyager on the iPhone to Meade LX200 Classic and Dobsonian mount. Then I pressed connect, and it seems to connect, but the crosshairs are pointing at the North Celestial Pole when I have the scope pointing at the Zenith. When I move the scope the crosshairs move but always as if the Zenith is the NCP. I don't know what to try next to fix this.

Any help appreciated.
Noel

Hi Noel,

Thanks for the post.

When you performed the alignment, were you outdoors at night aligning on real
stars with the telescope or indoors during the day just performing a faux
alignment?

Best Regards

Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Phone +61-2-9457-9593
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au

[NJB (Noel)]

Hi Gary.

I was outside using real stars (which have now gone again, thanks to clouds).

Noel

[gary]

Hi Noel,

Thanks again for the post.

Originally Posted by NJB

I have just discovered that after doing an align with the Argo Navis, then connecting iPhone SkyVoyager via SkyFi, the AN gets stuffed up. My location jumps from 153 degrees East to 206 degrees E on the AN, and when I select an object, the guide information is correct for the display in Sky Voyager, but not in reality. For example, the AN will guide me to say, Saturn, which SkyVoyager will show me pointing to, but in reality I am nowhere near Saturn in the sky.

When you mention the "location jumps" do you mean the Argo Navis GUIDE
display for the object?
For example, the display showed you needed to guide 153 degrees in Az and
then when you performed the connection, it instantaneously changed to 206
degrees in Az.

OR ...

Question: do you mean your observing latitude and longitude was changed
by the planetarium program when you performed the connect?
For example, you dialed up SETUP LOCATION and the latitude and longitude
had changed. If so, what is your actual lat/long location and what did the
planetarium program set them to?
By way of background, there is a command in the Meade protocol that allows
a planetarium program to set the longitude and another to set the latitude.
These values are set into your current default location in Argo Navis and the
system will invalidate any alignment. However, they are not saved into non-volatile
memory. Not many programs use this but perhaps SkyVoyager does.

Best Regards

Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Phone +61-2-9457-9593
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au

[NJB (Noel)]

Originally Posted by gary

Hi Noel,


When you mention the "location jumps" do you mean the Argo Navis GUIDE
display for the object?
For example, the display showed you needed to guide 153 degrees in Az and
then when you performed the connection, it instantaneously changed to 206
degrees in Az.

OR ...

Question: do you mean your observing latitude and longitude was changed
by the planetarium program when you performed the connect?
For example, you dialed up SETUP LOCATION and the latitude and longitude
had changed. If so, what is your actual lat/long location and what did the
planetarium program set them to?

Hi Gary. Thank you for your time. What happened is that after connecting via the SkyVoyager program, I looked at the Location setting on the Argo Navis. My default location is set as Hillcrest, Qld, and should be set to 27 deg S and 153 deg E (with appropriate ' and "). But it seems when I connect, the latitude is changed insignificantly (according to the value the SkyVoyager program was using), and the longitude changed to 206 deg E (and some ' and "), which is not what the program says in its settings. (The program should be picking up its data from the location services of the iPhone.)

Also when I had guide on the AN set to go to Saturn, it had correct values (I had used them to go to Saturn, then moved away watching the guide values). After I connect via SKyFi, the guide values displayed on the AN changed. If I pretended they were correct and moved the telescope to where they were telling me to go (which was nowhere near where Saturn really was), the display in the iPhone program, SkyVoyager, would show that I had gone to Saturn. Somehow there is incorrect information being sent to the AN, and/or passed from the AN to the SkyVoyager.

Noel

[gary]

Originally Posted by NJB

Hi Gary. Thank you for your time. What happened is that after connecting via the SkyVoyager program, I looked at the Location setting on the Argo Navis. My default location is set as Hillcrest, Qld, and should be set to 27 deg S and 153 deg E (with appropriate ' and "). But it seems when I connect, the latitude is changed insignificantly (according to the value the SkyVoyager program was using), and the longitude changed to 206 deg E (and some ' and "), which is not what the program says in its settings. (The program should be picking up its data from the location services of the iPhone.)

Hi Noel,

Thanks for this information.

As I mentioned, it is rare for a planetarium program to use the location setting
commands in the protocol, but this one apparently does.

The Meade protocol has commands for reading the lat/long and for setting the
lat/long. The convention that Meade use for longitude is that East longitudes have
negative values. For the command that fetches the longitude, I see that we handle
it correctly with regards the East is negative convention. However, at a glance
it appears we are not handling the setting of longitude case correctly with regards
the sign and studying the source confirms this.

I will drop you an email tomorrow with details of a possible fix.

Could you also please tell me whether the program supports more than one
type of Meade telescope and if so, what the choices are?

Best Regards

Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Phone +61-2-9457-9593
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au

[NJB (Noel)]

Originally Posted by gary

Could you also please tell me whether the program supports more than one
type of Meade telescope and if so, what the choices are?

Thanks for that info Gary, and your effort in this. The Meade telescopes supported by the program are:
Meade LX-200 Classic
Meade LX-200 GPS
Meade LX-400 ACF
Meade ETX 90-125
Meade LXD 650-750
Meade LXD 55-75
Meade LX 90
Meade Magellan I
Meade Magellan II

I note that they also support Sky Commander and ServoCAT Argo Navis. On Carina Software's web page on SkyVoyager, about half way down the page, it lists the telescopes and systems that are supported.

I have tried Meade LX-200 Classic, Meade LX-200 GPS and Meade LX 90, and as far as I can tell, all behaved the same.

Thanks again.
Noel

[NJB (Noel)]

Hi Gary, and everyone.

Tonight is clear skies here, so I got the Dob, Argo Navis, SkyFi and iPhone out and got them all working. I realise there is still the issue of how AN treats a lattitude given to it when emulating meade mode on a serial port, but I turned off the settiing in SkyVoyager that sends the location information (SkyVoyager>Settings>Communication> turn "Set Time & Location" to Off). And success! It all works as it should. Love it! Thanks to Gary for his help, and also to Tim on the Carina Software's Yahoo group.

Noel.