Sky X thinks its in the northern hemisphere

[gregbradley]

Everything worked perfectly last night and tonight Sky X is stuck on thinking its in the Northern Hemisphere.

I am using an AP1600 GTO mount and Sky X. I am using the Ascom AP GTO driver. When its connected there is no option for telescope control centre where you can click on southern hemisphere.

I think in the past I slewed the scope to a known star then did a star sync on it. I did that a few times tonight and no go.

Any suggestions?

Perhaps I should try another software?

Greg.

[DJT]

Hi Greg
Am going to ask the stupid questions so don’t take offence

There’s a switch on the AP controller to toggle between northern and southern. Did a possum inadvertently flick it over

Did a software update come in from Sky’s last night and if so, is it possible to revert back to the previous version

Did you do anything in terms of setup changes between the night it worked and the night it stopped working.

D

[gregbradley]

Yes the switch on the control box is switched to south. I am not connected to the net nor get updates from Sky X.

I did add a usb hub but I tried it without it and no difference.

Greg,

[Startrek]

Greg,
Is this the same software ?
“The Sky X “
Here’s the manual for “the Sky X”
Maybe you have already seen it ??

https://www.buytelescopes.com/images/site2/product_copy/14449/b0ce174b-872d-4510-bfe8-c6aca761fca3.pdf

Don't know if this helps

I also saw a post of yours in January asking for the same thing
Joshua Bunn replied

Cheers
Martin

[Startrek]

Sorry it was a post in January 2021
Joshua Bunn replied
Cheers

[Dennis]

In times like this is find I go back to basics and check the obvious in case some inadvertent changes have been made.

So, is your Input - Location set correctly?

Cheers

Dennis

[gregbradley]

Thanks Martin and Dennis. I think I also need to check the AP 1600 manual if I can find it. I wonder if it has to do with parking position when started.

Yes I have checked the location several times and all is good there.

Greg.

[matlud]

Hi Greg,

Do you use t-point? If so the model might have been corrupted -I had this happen once on my 10Micron with it thinking it was in the North, and it was fixed by deleting the model and redoing this.

Cheers,
Mat

[gregbradley]

Well that is a possibility as I did a 108 point T Point model the night before which worked really well.

I did process during the day and take some flats during the day. The mount was on for a long time. Power probably got interrupted once or twice. I remember Sky X crashing because of one careless click or sweep of the mouse.

Sky X is not as stable using CMOS cameras than it is with CCD cameras which never seemed to upset it.

Anyway I managed to solve it. I loaded up all the software, drivers, adapter drivers for serial to usb etc I needed to transfer my system. I did that, managed to get it mostly working (why are drivers for adapter so touchy?)

I then manually slewed the scope to the moon and then used star sync to align the model and it all worked.

I found out the Sky X only gives the mount RA/DEC orders and the AP driver and mount does the rest. It seemed to be stuck on thinking the mount and OTA were on the other side of the pier than they were. Playing with the different park positions changed that to the correct side.
Then the moon used as a star sync worked and the mount was back to decent go-tos and I was in business again. I managed to get a full night's imaging in last night under excellent conditions.

A bit painful was the loss of the night before which was totally clear all night, with good seeing and a moon that was not affecting the imaging.
Ouch - so rare in the last 9 months or longer!

I think its time I also upgraded my AP mount to the latest controller which has a USB output rather than a serial output requiring software adapters to make them work (and surprisingly hard to find and implement).

So I got 3 full sets of images in this trip and another hour an a half of luminance of a galaxy for which I have a lot of archived data I can add it to to make a very long exposure image.

Thanks to all who helped.

The motto in all of this is sometimes you just need perserverance and several computers in reserve!

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Update on this problem:

I finally managed to solve it after spending a good many hours on it.

I loaded up another laptop with the various drivers, Ascom and software drivers for the silly Serial RS232 plug to USB adapters (these were problematic).

When I loaded the AP driver in it came up with a different window which showed what side of the pier the scope was on. It had it back to front. Playing with the various park modes finally got it to recognise the OTS was on the west side of the pier.

Finally I manually moved the scope to point at the moon. Clicked on the moon on Sky X and did a star sync. All good after that and got 6 hours of imaging done on another pristine clear night with decent seeing.

I think in hindsight what happened was during the day when I was doing flats with the roof closed I accidentally swiped something with the mouse and it caused Sky X to crash. Something then must have been corrupted.

Now once it was slewing properly it also worked on the original computer. So the corruption was in the AP driver or the mount itself.

Agonising to see a perfect night of excellent seeing, very dark, no wind, no clouds and wasting it chasing a gremlin like that. Good news for me is now I have a backup computer that I can swap to in minutes and I need to setup the park positions properly and keep an eye on that.

Greg.

[Dennis]

Good to see that you found a fix Greg, thanks for the update.:)

I like to read about how folks have solved their problems, it adds to the body of knowledge on the site.:thumbsup:

Cheers

Dennis