Quantcast
Channel: Main Sequence Software - Latest posts
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 52141

Troubles with Moonlite Rotator

$
0
0

Link to Log:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8WLV-uvuJEOMG9jNmhTMHBpUjg

Using version 2.5.1.17

I've been busy with my day job for so long, I've almost forgotten what the sky looks like at night. Anyway, I got out under clear skies last night, and tried to start imaging M31. I'm trying to create a mosaic of that, since it's so big, and therefore the rotation of the image is an issue. Once I got everything all set up, I started the sequence, but it kept failing, (and I must have tried a dozen times), on the image rotation step. SGP seemed to know that I have a MoonLite Rotator, but it never managed to make the rotator move as much as a single degree. The error message was just a generic failure on step three of the plate solve. I used to plate solving delay to try rotating the camera, myself, using MoonLite's hand controller, and I eventually managed to get it to within the 5 degree tolerance that is set.

Can you tell what I have set up incorrectly? The MoonLite focuser has worked in the past, though never to rotator. Last night I could not get to the focusing step. I was able to use MoonLite's software, separately, to control focus and rotation, during my set up of the scope, so there does not appear to be a comm problem between the computer and the MoonLite device. You can see the first error at about 10:41.

(The full log is available on the link, above.)

[9/4/2016 10:41:33 PM] [DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] ASCOM Rotator: Error in Move(abs) : MoveAbsolute set - '18332.22' is an invalid value. The valid range is: 0 to 360. (System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: MoveAbsolute set - '18332.22' is an invalid value. The valid range is: 0 to 360.
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
<<

18332 is the number that MoonLite's hand controller was showing, so it seems clear that the device could talk to SGP, but, based on my reading of the logs, it seems that they could not agree on whether they were discussing degrees of rotation, or steps.

The log is full of these, since I kept manually rotation it until I got it roughly into line with the reference image.

I am willing to accept that I haven't got SGP configured properly, but if that's the case, I would sure appreciate a little advice on getting it set up properly.

(Even once I got the rotation handled, manually, SGP failed to ever get going, because even though I thought I had PHD2 running and working properly, SGP demanded a recalibration, which failed. It'd be nice, I think, if SGP would display that it was waiting on PHD2... since I didn't figure that problem out for a rather long time, and I could not see any indication, until SGP gave up, that that was what was going on.)

Thanks,

Karl


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 52141

Trending Articles