Odd Problem With AO-X

Ok, I've set it to log; assuming it works, and I can find the log, I'll post it here tomorrow.

 

I have attached the log (I think). I only saw the guiding acting that strange way once (but I wasn't watching it constantly); when I checked in on it at 10:26 pm PDT/05:26UT, it was doing it, and continued to do it for another two minutes.

Also, I have attached the first image from the night; look at the satellite trail that goes from the top left to the bottom right, which, when made large, is a periodic curve, not a straight line. It also has elongated stars, although not nearly as bad as they had been (all the Sh2-80 images had an eccentricity in Pixinsight of around .7; all the other images last night had an eccentricity around .6). Maybe there are two things at work here--an intermittent problem with the mount, and something wrong with the AO?

 

Bump....

 

The squiggly satellite trail was with the AO unplugged; it wasn't causing the squiggly trail.

Any luck figuring out why the guiding (regular, not AO) goes off for a few minutes, not correcting, then corrects?

 

I'm sorry, but I don't know what this tells me to look for. Clearly, corrections were not being made, so there is an issue. Equally clearly, correction are being made the rest of the time. What "downstream" should we be looking at?

 

Thanks!

But I do not know how to "put ASCOM Device Hub in the middle."

I'm using ACP Expert/Scheduler. In Maxim I "control by" ASCOM Direct. The mount (Bisque Paramount ME) is controlled by TheSkyX Professional Edition, using TheSky telescope driver. Can you tell me what I should do with my settings, to accomplish what you suggest?

Thanks.

Mark

 

There is no "Device Hub" option under "Control Via."

And I don't see any place where I choose "Device Hub." I see under "Com Port" a choice for Device Hub," but it won't let me do that.

I need very precise instructions as to what to do.

Thanks.

Mark

 

When I choose "Control Via," then pick "ASCOM Direct," I get no further choices, such as "chooser."

 

I have read that instruction page more times than I can count (and I have two degrees in mathematics).

There is a "setup" button to the right of "Control Via" drop list.

When I select "ASCOM Direct" (the only ASCOM choice), it just takes it. No "chooser" comes up.

When I click on "setup" next to "COM port," the only thing that comes up is the ASCOM telescope chooser, which doesn't give me any option vaguely similar to what you're telling.

I have no idea how to deal with this. I have spent, literally, hours messing with options, and I cannot find anything like what you're saying.

 

Hi Mark.

If it’s any help…..

Edited...Note: see following post #37 before reading through this post #36

Start ASCOM Device Hub first, you’ll find that if you look under ASCOM in the programs/apps start menu from Win7/8.1/10/11.

With Device Hub open on the desktop configure just the Telescope setup for TheSky 32/64, whichever you use, and enable message logging. Don’t configure any other equipment settings in Device Hub.

“Connect” to the telescope in Device Hub which will start up TheSky and make the connection to the Paramount.

ASCOM Device Hub has to be already running, at least one time, before it appears as “Device Hub Telescope” in MaxIm and ACP chooser menus (I think that “Device Hub Telescope” is the right chooser name, I’m replying via my iPad this morning while away from home so no Windows with ASCOM installed to double check).

In ACP you must change the Telescope setup from, (I think) TheSky Controlled Telescope, to ASCOM Device Hub, and ACP will then test the connection to the Paramount through Device Hub, which is another reason you must already have Device Hub open, configured and connected to the Paramount before you begin configuring MaxIm.

Once ACP reports it is happy with the connection to the Paramount through Device Hub then open MaxIm and configure the guide method as ASCOM Direct and click the setup button, which should now show Device Hub Telescope as an option in the chooser menu.

Once those options are configured in ACP, MaxIm and Device Hub itself, then whenever you start up ACP or MaxIm and manually or automatically “connect” to the mount then Device Hub will automatically launch itself and connect to TheSky first and then the Paramount, you don’t need to manually start Device Hub first.

Never having tried this myself Mark I have no idea whether ACP will still be happy guiding with the original guide calibration when it was talking directly to the Paramount via TheSky and MaxIm or whether you will need to run ACP’s guider calibration script again with the indirect method of connecting to the mount through Device Hub.

Device Hub writes its logs to your user documents directory, ASCOM folder, I can’t remember now whether it writes a new log each session or over-writes the existing log, so for now grab the Device Hub log that Doug is asking for when ending the current session and before beginning the next.

The above “overview” is from memory and I hope nothing is missed, if still finding this setup using Device Hub rather unclear then post back and sometime over the weekend when I’m back home I’ll set up a test Windows VM with ACP, MaxIm, TheSky and Device Hub to work through the process of connecting together.

I no longer have direct access to a real Paramount, having sold my own MX last year, and the final ME of three Paramounts we originally shared out in Portugal was deinstalled in March this year, so I can’t replicate the above on a working system but I think everything is covered.

William.

 

Hi Mark.

After replying in detail in post #36 I later thought why are you doing this when you can get the log of mount commands for a Paramount directly from the Software Bisque ASCOM 2x Mount Adaptor interface?

If in ACP, top menu, open > "Telescope" > "Setup" > "ASCOM Telescope Chooser" > "ASCOM Telescope Driver for TheSky" > Properties button > "TheSky Controlled Driver Setup" > bottom of the U.I., click to enable the option box "Trace on". > click "OK"

Mount commands passing through ACP or MaxIm's "Direct Guide" option will be written to the ASCOM log, normally in C:\Users\<your user name>\Documents\ASCOM\Logs <date>\"ASCOM.SoftwareBisquexx.xxxx.xxxxxx".

IIRC, in the usual helpful Software Bisque manner they don't write the date or time of the log file to the log file name, just a sequence of otherwise random digits, probably means something to Software Bisque but not helpful to end users, so clear out the Software Bisque logs from the ASCOM folder before you begin a guiding test and then when finished and TheSkyX is closed down copy all the saved Software Bisque logs for that day to a different folder for inspection.

The log data is written as plain text and is date and time stamped so can be matched to guiding issues when compared to MaxIm's guide logs.

You can also reach the same "TheSky Controlled Driver Setup" U.I. from MaxIm by clicking on "Camera Control" > Guide tab > "Settings" button > Auto Guide Output > Control Via > "ASCOM Direct" > Setup button> Chooser dropdown menu "ASCOM Telescope Driver for TheSky" > "Properties" button > "TheSky Controlled Driver Setup" > bottom of the U.I. enable "Trace on".

This is exactly the same ASCOM driver setup U.I. for a Paramount controlled by TheSky as the one reached from ACP's telescope chooser menu, you can approach the "TheSky Controlled Driver Setup" U.I. from either ACP or MaxIm, both point to the same place.

Once the test is completed and you have the logs don't forget to switch the Trace function off again otherwise you'll soon fill the hard drive with Software Bisque telescope logs.

HTH

William.

 

Thank you so much, William; I never, ever, would have figured that out.

Now I'll see if this works under dark skies; it did connect just fine, so that's a start!

Mark

 

No change in behavior, after all that.

Added to the mix is that the guiding now is choppy, with frequent errors that are well over 1 pixel, where it used to be very steady, very low errors. So now, there are two problems with guiding--the occasional time when the guide error just stays high for a few minutes, and the choppy guiding.

The AO-X is completely out of the system, replaced by an extension tube. Also still have oblong stars.

I'm hoping we can get the backup camera to come to focus with the new extension tube, to be able to definitively tell whether the problem is with the camera or the mount.