Starry Nights / ASCOM communication issues

[Escortitis]

Evening all,

Wanted to get some advice from anyone who has successfully got SNPP6 to operate / communicate with an NGC Sky Vector. I have tried almost everything I can think of and now must ask for help.

The setup as it is now has the latest version of SN and all of the ASCOM drivers I have been able to muster including EK's DSC driver and the Intelliscope drivers, all of which assure comms with the Sky Vector. The Sky Vector is working well, and I can communicate with it via hyper term. and can get it to operate with Cartes Du Ciel. I'm using a true COM port (not USB-serial) and have all the settings for the port as prescribed.

When using it with SN however, every time I give the connect command it pauses for a few seconds and then gives an error message "failed to initialize device, make sure blah blah.'

At this point I have to assume that this is an ASCOM problem, as it works OK with Cartes Du Ciel which does not use the ASCOM interface.

I know that it can work with SN because they point it out as an advantage to the latest upgrade yet I can find very little help on the SN website and all the googling has not got me very far (only back to the SN website actually!!)

Any tips / links or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

George.

[matt]

Sorry for the basic nature of the question...but what is ASCOM?

[Escortitis]

Originally Posted by matt

Sorry for the basic nature of the question...but what is ASCOM?

'The only silly question, is the question not asked'

Have a look here Matt:-

http://ascom-standards.org/

George

[jase (Jason)]

George,
Actually you can configured Cartes Du Ciel to use ASCOM instead of a native encoder. It would be worthy to try this to validate ASCOM operations. Also if you are using POTH (recommended), you can debug the commands that are going across the serial interface. This gives to visibility of what the software is issuing to the telescope and in turn the telescopes response. POTH stands for Plain Old Telescope Hub. Link the ASCOM driver to POTH, then link your programs such as Cartes Du Ciel and SN to POTH. As the name implies, it acts as a communication hub between devices/software.

[AdrianF (Adrian)]

For those interested I have managed, with help from the EQMOD forum, to get software control of where my EQ6 mount points using Stellarium. Point at the star/planet/neb in Stellarium and press CTRL+1 and the scope will slew to and track(?) the object.

You will need programs from 4 sites

EQMOD instal files from http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/
Stellarium from http://www:stellarium.org
Stellarium Scope from http://www.bytearts.com/stellarium/
ASCOM drivers from http://ascom-standards.org/


Good thing is its freeware except for Stellarium Scope, they ask for a donation of $25.
Have a look great alternative to spending 100's$ on software then can spend it on necessary things like guide scopes etc

Adrian

[Escortitis]

Still no joy.

Jase, I have had a crack at using ASCOM out of Cartes with POTH and various others but it still gives the same error message. Some research has suggested that there may be a Tx, Rx timing issue (sending while it receives) but with no way of changing those settings using ASCOM I have no way of proving that. There is a selection available to change the signal interval (sample rate?) time when using the 'encoder platform' in Cartes however it seems to work on all the settings available.

Still would love to hear from someone who is (or knows someone who is) using a NGC Sky Vector with Starry Nights

Thanks again all

George.

[serge]

Hello George,

Have you tried using Hyperterminal to connect to your Sky Vector?

You should be able to connect to it and just type 'Q' and it should send the current encoders' position back and display it in HyperTerminal's window. If that does not work then I would suggest to check the cable and/or possibly try it on a different computer in case your COM port is not working.

Best Regards,
Serge.