ASCOM and mount control with USB/serial adapter problem

[telemarker (Keith)]

I seem to be having some problem getting Stellarium 10.2 with Stellariumscope to control my LXD75 with Ascom 5a and the appropriate Meade Autostar and Focuser driver. My laptop is hooked up to the Autostar 497 hand controller via the serial cable with a USB/serial adapter. With the port settings aligned in the driver and Windows (Vista) I get a message that there doesn't appear to be anything connected to the port when I try to connect the scope. If I unplug the adapter I get a port error message when I try to connect to the scope. Ascom 4.1 would lock up Stellarium scope if I tried to connect to the scope (hence Ascom 5a).

I don't think the problem is related to the USB adapter as I can control the mount with this serial cable/adapter/hand controller setup when using Autostar suite. I usually have Stellarium open during sessions and find autostar suite rather clunky so would prefer not to use it. I use PhD with a GPUSB adapter for guiding as well with no problems.

Are there any experienced users of the above bits and bobs that could guide me ('scuse the pun) in getting this going?

Keith

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

Q.

You say you use GPUSB to guide your mount from PHD. Can you guide your mount via the ASCOM and the 497 from PHD. I am wondering if it ASCOM talking to the 497 that is the problem.

I only say that, as i had a 5h1t load of problems trying to get ASCOM5 to talk to my ETX and had to back down to 4.1 to make it work.

[pmrid (Peter)]

Originally Posted by telemarker

I seem to be having some problem getting Stellarium 10.2 with Stellariumscope to control my LXD75 with Ascom 5a and the appropriate Meade Autostar and Focuser driver. .........

Keith

\Keith
I have an LXD75 also and have just downloaded the new Stellarium and Stellariumscope. I have a GPUSB that is passing through a 909 clone into the Aux port of the mount. I'll have a play over the next couple of days (hopelessly clouded over so what else can you do?) and let you know how that goes.

Peter

[telemarker (Keith)]

An update:
Using EQ Align I can control the mount with the serial connection to the handset. This used the inbuilt LX200 protocol, if I swapped over to ascom in EQ Align.... nothing.

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

Did you do an ASCOM 5 raw install or did you do an ASCOM 4.1 install with 5 upgrade?

I found when I did the straight 5 install it wouldn't load the LX200 driver, but if I did the 4.1 install first then upgrade to 5 it all worked fine.

[telemarker (Keith)]

I eventually got this adapter working. It works perfectly in a XP Virtualbox machine running on my Vista laptop. Although the serial/USB adapter did originally connect to the handset with Vista and Autostar suite it was flakey at best and nearly killed the 497 controller. I had to get a laptop with a proper serial port to reflash the handset.... thought I had broken it good and proper .

Yay, I can goto and control the handset from the laptop . Now, what I need is to segregate the telescope control and the guiding/camera control into virtual windows like my mac desktop can. Anyone know how to do this in Vista?

[telemarker (Keith)]

Just for the Halibut, I deleted the Vista USB/serial driver and installed the WinXP driver. Guess what .......!!!!

[mozzie (Peter)]

hi keith i went to spsp had taken computer and paul one of the it experts had a look at starry night there was a prob with the comm port setup he reasigned new comm ports and starrynight on vista works a dream
mozzie