ASCOM driver for Orion StarShoot Pro

[cplloyd42]

I have a StarShoot Pro Deep Space Imager, which sadly, with the march of technology, Orion is no longer supporting in any meaningful way.

I am trying to use APT (Astro Photography Tool) to control the camera but am having trouble with finding an ASCOM driver for it to operate under Windows 7 x64.

Would anyone have an idea where I might find a suitable one?

Thanks in advance,
Paul.

[Dr. Washington]

Hi Paul,

I've been trying to do the same thing over the past few days with my Starshoot Autoguider, but had no luck at all with the ASCOM drivers that Orion provide.

I eventually got it working in Maxim DL by using the non-ASCOM drivers and bypassing ASCOM completely. Frustrating that there doesn't seem to be much support for relatively modern machines.

[Crux]

Don't know if you have seen this, or if it will help.

http://www.optcorp.com/articles/ascom-drivers-for-starshoot-camera/

Hayden

[cplloyd42]

Thank you, Crux, for this suggestion. The link actually refers you to:

http://www.optcorp.com/pdf/Orion/StarShootASCOM100209.exe

to download this driver.

I have done this, but APT (Astro Photography Tool) can't find the camera, and the ASCOM dialogue implies that it is not connected (Properties button in the ASCOM Camera Chooser utility). However, after connecting the camera I had received a Windows message that the camera's driver had been successfully installed, and I can find it in Device Manager's list under USB devices. The Maxim DL Essentials application distributed with SSPro also has no trouble connecting to the camera, but presumably it is using the Windows driver, not the ASCOM driver.

Note: I have checked that the Microsoft .NET 3.5.1 is installed and enabled - a requisite for ASCOM 6.1SP1.

So, the problem seems to be with the ASCOM driver. Has anyone got any further suggestions? It's beginning to look like I'm stuck with using the Maxim DL application - a pity as APT is so easy to use.

Paul.

[Eden]

Hi Guys,

I am not sure if this will help, but I had similar issues with the Starshoot drivers a few months ago. The drivers appeared to install properly but the camera wouldn't connect (I recall trying PHD and Maxim at the time).

The problem turned out to be the Orion installer, as confirmed by Orion support after I reported the issue. If you have anti-virus software of any kind, it needs to be completely disabled for the duration of the driver installation and the driver install executable must be run with Administrator privileges if you're not already doing so.

I hope you get the problems sorted. We should be able to work it out, there are a lot of people who are still using these even if Orion are not longer explicitly supporting them.

[cplloyd42]

Eden,

Thank you for your suggestion, and I am happy that it sorted out your problem. Unfortunately, it didn't solve mine. I uninstalled the ASCOM SSAG v3.0.0.0 (02/2014) driver using the installer program, turned off both my virus protection and firewall, reinstalled the driver, and turned on the virus protection & firewall. When I attached my camera and tried to reconnect using APT I got exactly the same responses as I described earlier from both it and the ASCOM Camera Chooser tool.

Paul.

[cplloyd42]

Am I missing something here?

I have run the ASCOM 6.1 Diagnostic Tool and I find it scanning the COM ports, but not the USB ports. Is this normal? I thought the ASCOM driver for SSPro would cater for the different communications port, but perhaps it isn't. If ASCOM doesn't support USB, then where are we going as so many devices these days have eschewed the old RS232 com ports?

Paul.