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Originally Posted by mill
You can always call it the Doughouse  |
Isnt there some copyright laws or something to stop this
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hagar
This would have to have been the biggest and toughest project I have started to date. The observatory itself and the dome rotation hardware were really a breeze to assemble. If I can do it without a major stuff up and without bits left over it must be easy.
The big killer for me has been getting the dome to slave with the telescope while connected to Starry Night Pro or the Sky six. I must have tried every combination of software and ascom drivers there is and still had some unreliable success but also a lot of total failures.
I tried everything known to man appart from purchasing a copy of Automadome from software Bisque. I wasn't going down that track as Houghy had made the purchase and was no closer to getting it all to work than I was.
I have scoured the internet for any snippet of info which might shed some light on my problems. I just couldn't get the dome to connect with the Gemini and the planetarium program without one two or all three throwing there arms and legs in the air in horror and sprouting some new and unheard of error message.
I had almost settled on using POTH (Plain old telescope handset) to interface between the 3 components I wanted to connect. Seemed like a good cost neutral alternative to Automadome. POTH being an intermeadiary connection program I was eventually able to connect all together as long as I started POTH, made the connection to the dome and Gemini and once these were connected made a final connection from The Sky to POTH using The Ascom Tele API.
I though I had struck it rich until the next time I tried to repeat the win only to find the gemini wouldn't connect and brought up a batch of new errors which really frightened me as one was almost a full page of quite small text. Out of interest I tried the same connection routine with the ascom telescope and dome simulator and it all worked every time. I now suspected a Gemini problem.
Back to the net I went, joined the Gemini_Ascom.net Yahoo group and started sifting through another bucket full of information. One item which kept popping up was a comment that the Gemini Ascom controller didn't work effectively when started from a third party controller like POTH, Ascom Dome or even Automadome. The fix seemed to be to open the Gemini Ascom control from the desktop and make the connection first then to start POTH and while connected request Poth to start the Gemini driver and it seemed to connect seamlessly every time.
This was a big win for me and it just required some settings on the dome and mount geometry to be input into POTH dome control to get it working.
This was not as easy as it first seemed. The geometry figures required were not terribly well explained and my original figures were less than satisfactory. Thankfully Marcus Davies has been through this same process and has produced a document explaining the geometry requirements. His document explained how and where to take the measurements from and made this final stage much easier. THANK MARCUS.
I now have a dome which does follow my scope quite reliably. A few of the figures need some fine tuning but at least it now all works and leaves me with a small amount of hair to keep the sun off the side of my head.
It has been quite a process and had I known it was going to be so hard I probably would have stayed with my old ROR although the dome should be more pleasurable in winter and on windy evenings.
I guess this closes another chapter in my learning curve in astrophotography. I can't say this one has been fun though.
Thanks to everyone who has helped and provided support during this and to my Wife a big thanks for not moving my bed into my little round room.
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thats what i found as well - but somehow it nover works the same way twice
i gave up for a while, but then tried the basic dome control with ascom and got it to working where the scope and dome worked well - two nights in a row. i am yet to get the rotten thing to talk to theSky6 properly and as for automadome - what a waste of money - should never have jumped in so quick purchasing that. i sure in some alternate universe it must be working for someone (not including Marcus
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