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Old 26-03-2008, 10:46 AM
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g__day (Matthew)
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Anyone know of an ASCOM utility to send periodic pulse guides?

I am still modelling my mount + SCT's apparent tracking performance. I am supicious the mount is running an arc minute an hour fast and ponder - does anyone know of a utility that will send a consistent pulse guide - e.g. slow down RA tracking by 1 arc second, every minute - to a an ASCOM mount?

I possible could open up the terminal COM port and send an ASCII text command - slow down or pulse guide, then go to sleep for 60 seconds.

Really interested in anyone thoughts. I'd love to nail tracking on an ASCOM mount!
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Old 26-03-2008, 11:37 AM
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ASCOM is only an interface definition, it doesn't do anything.
For each mount, a driver needs to be written that complies with the ASCOM interface.
As such you need to find if the driver for your mount supports pulse guides etc. If it does, then anything that can send the std commands should work.

If not, ASCOM supports a "passthrough" command, but in this case, you need to know the exact command to send. And if you know that, and just want to send it direct to the comm port, then you dont need ASCOM

Andrew
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Old 26-03-2008, 12:13 PM
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g__day (Matthew)
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Andrew,

Thanks. Yes I believe the mount and its driver support pulse guides (not sure of the minimum pulse guide that can be sent). Under The Sky 6 Professional Edition, using TeleAPI -> MaxPoint -> ASCOM5a -> SkySensor2000-PC driver pulse guides are fully revealed. The scope is in LX200 emulation mode protocol.

So what I really desire to do is to sent a regular slow down by one arc second every minute.

More specifics on how to do this would be really appreciated!
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Old 26-03-2008, 04:52 PM
AndrewJ
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If you are running from the Sky etc, it may not be so simple
You could certainly create an app to send adjustment commands
I dont use VB etc ( as i consider it a virus ) but a simple app could be made with a timer that did this. Then you would need to connect the scope to POTH or a similar hub, then yr app /the sky etc would connect to POTH so they could both send commands.
Where it may get hairy is if you send commands to slew ( to fix tracking rate probs ), where does the scope now think it is ????
IE if there is something wrong deeper down, sending slew commands to retain tracking rate may alter the perceived RA of the scope
Dunno, you will need to dig there on exactly how yr scope reports RA
Ie when you see the drift in the EP, does the scope say its RA is drifting??
If not, using guide commands will desynchronise the scope from the planetarium prog driving it.
When computer says no, funny things happen.

Andrew
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Old 26-03-2008, 07:32 PM
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g__day (Matthew)
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MaxPoint is a HUb anyway - so sharing connections is fine.

What I'd really love is software that assesses and improves tracking - like ProTrack for a Paramount ME or the way Smart Track with MaxPoint and MaximDL is supposed to work!
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Old 27-03-2008, 08:14 AM
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Thats why guiders were invented :-)
To do what you want, you need to take into account refraction etc
as the rate changes with altitude, its not a simple one rate fixes all.

Andrew
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Old 27-03-2008, 11:32 AM
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g__day (Matthew)
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The controller already takes into account refraction, and guiding off a secondary scope doesn't help for mirror shift or differential flexure!
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Old 27-03-2008, 01:46 PM
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Does it take refraction into account when tracking ( ie does it apply King rates ) or just when "going to"?
I only know the Meades in detail, and they operate by using refracted target data, but once there they revert to just dumb sidereal tracking

A dual chip camera doesnt suffer from the probs you listed
but now you have opened another can of worms
A simple tracking rate adjust ( as per yr initial requirement ) wont account for mirror shift etc either
It sounds like you want to model 360deg of motion of yr scope
which is not a trivial rate adjust program

Andrew
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Old 28-03-2008, 01:49 PM
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g__day (Matthew)
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My understanding is that it takes into account air's refraction effects when processing both tracking and pointing.

Dual chip - agreed would skirt these problems

Simple tracking adjustment - if its a rock solid constant delta - actually yes it will (but I'd like to know why its a constant delta!) It seems irreconcible to me that pointing is really excellent (I've had it down to 34 arc seconds) when tracking is out - they are heavily related so should be directly affecting each other.

A model of 360 motion would be brilliant and yes if you had it and tracking rates were consistent - you could easily apply this tracking correction periodically. In fact this is basically what Tpoint and ProTrack do for the PME and what MaxPoint and Smart Track try to do for any other ASCOM controlled mounts!

It's simple once you have the data - a 2 dimensional matrix of correction values you simply look up by (Alt, Az) to apply a RA correction - possibly smoothed by a fitted curve to the nearest sample points. You could build the matrix by slewing, and observing, - which is just one step more complicated then Tpoint or MaxPoint already do to capture pointing correction data). Then you simply read the matrix every 15 minutes based on pointing paramaters to find the best fit / smallest pulse guide correction pulses to add to the mounts movements. Smart Track does this - its just not yet as good as I'd like!


* * * *
http://winfij.homeip.net/maximdl/smarttrack.html
SmartTrack MaxPoint addon

This addon application for MaxPoint uses the pointing model generated for your mount to enhance its tracking accuracy as well as its pointing accuracy, allowing longer unguided exposures to be achieved, useful for imaging in the field where setting up an extra guide scope is troublesome.
SmartTrack will automatically compensate for all of the error parameters modeled by MaxPoint, including polar misalignment, RA/Dec bias, axes misalignment and tube/mount flexure. It will also correct for the changing atmospheric refraction if you have enabled that in MaxPoint.
It does this by constantly monitoring the difference between the physical coordinates of the mount and the corrected coordinates those physical coordinates would map to once the mount model correction has been applied.
If the difference goes over the specified allowable error, ASCOM pulseguide() commands are sent to the mount to correct it’s pointing.

An example of the level of correction achievable is shown below. This is an animation of a pair of 400 second (6.7 minute) test shots through my 10" LX200R SCT, one regular unguided shot, the other also unguided but using SmartTrack.
The scope has a focal length of 2760mm, giving an image scale of 0.67 arcsec/pixel. The trailing is evident in the unguided image, but greatly reduced by running SmartTrack.

Last edited by g__day; 28-03-2008 at 02:10 PM.
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