> How is the gamepad wired up?

The gamepad is not wired to the mount. It provides input to the software that calculates the satellite position.

First night out with my Mach2.  How is this for different - a StarLink satellite is a tight round dot and the stars are streaks... :)   The perpendicular movement at 00:24 is me making an adjustment with a gamepad - how fun is that?  Near the end of the video clip you can see the StarLink rotate. I'm looking forward to an ISS pass. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDiPO-QuHPE

Wonderful capture Geoff!

This is a seldom photographed object. However, it is quite large (3') and  bright (12.1).
Mount:AP900GTO
Camera: FLI Proline 16803
Telescope: 12.5" Planewave.
Processed in PixInsight.

Technical details here https://www.astrobin.com/onq3o6/
Larger res here https://www.astrobin.com/full/onq3o6/0/
Geoff

Is there is a formal process for submitting software enhancement requests for the AP ASCOM driver or APCC?  Thanks.

Hi John,

You need to outfit it with the 2" male end plugs for the PVC tubing.  No restrictions.  The 24" length PVC I bought fit both my 14" and 8.5" shaft extension, excluding the AP shaft stop.
The shafts are for my 1200 and 1100 mounts.  Hope that helps.

Clear skies,
Jose

Just an update on the ASI AIR Pro and the  Mach 1( CP4) ..The Raspberry Pi software/plate solve in the AAP does a wonderful job of polar alignment .. After two iterations of PA ,I checked it against SharpCap and RAPAS and it was dead- on with both. More importantly I was doing three minutes subs without guiding and saw nice round stars.  The AAP (PhD 2 light) auto guider is just ...um...ok... a bit of patience/ frustration to get the aggressiveness correct and the other setting needed more than bit of tweaking.

So to answer the question I asked above about resetting  to Park...The 'trick" is after you PA, do a long GOTO to the West side of the mount, plate solve, hit sync in AAP and got to park on the AAP. You'll be a bit or a lot off.. open the clutches and manually  move the mount to the Park position of you choice  and tighten the clutches. Do a long GOTO East, plate solve,  and back to Park and open and close the clutches again to get the mark lined up perfectly. I have hit every GOTO right in the middle of the camera's field of view since then.  And even after shutting off the CP4 and AAP, the postitioning/ GOTO was perfect two nights later.

I posted my first light pic at Lee D. Photos

Hi Mike,

The mount is the only stationary thing that the NUC needs to control, and it will indeed
being sending UDP over wifi to the StarTech box.
It's working flawless since it turned up now on UDP, zero comm errors in APCC.

APCC does not know or care which type of COM port (i.e., real/virtual) it uses for the connection to the mount.

More likely, the problem was something in the Startech's WiFi network protocol stack.

-Ray

-----Original Message-----
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io [mailto:main@ap-gto.groups.io] On Behalf Of Mike C
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2021 11:04 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] STAR TECH Ethernet->Serial



I don't think I can control my Sony mirrorless with Maxim, so I will be using an independent app for camera
control.
Or worst case -- a plug-in timer/intervalometer.

The Camera and the NUC are both attached to the tracking platform, so all the cabling will be tied down for
camera control. (USB-C)

The mount is the only stationary thing that the NUC needs to control, and it will indeed being sending UDP over
wifi to the StarTech box.
It's working flawless since it turned up now on UDP, zero comm errors in APCC.

Mike

I guess it wasn't a well defined question. We have seen multiple paradigm shifts in the last 5-10 years that are driving fast growth in the amateur imaging community.

Changes include:
   CMOS cameras (short exposures with lots of data)
   unguided imaging with/without ABS encoders  (AP / APCC Pro and others)
   narrowband/broadband filters for OSC cameras (Imaging from the city and pseudo narrowband)
   automated acquisition software to capture more data during precious good weather nights (CCD Autopilot, SGM  & others)
   processing software and techniques (PixInsight, StarTools, DSS, ASTAP & others)
   low cost entry mounts that produce reasonable images at short focal lengths with fast CMOS cameras. (short exposure, less tracking issues)
   Social media that drives amateur collaboration. (Quick answers for new imagers.)

It would be great at the amateur level to have multiple computer systems coordinating dithering and automated imaging run tasks etc. This could be used for tandem setups or multiple telescope systems (occultations etc). I already use onboard NUC's or Beelink clones for each scope's instrument package. This requires changes to the camera control software like MaximDL and/or automated control programs like CCD Autopilot and SGM.  Simple open platform semaphore communication could really help with coordination between systems. Yes, I was a career software engineer but I don't control the applications software and prefer to spend time imaging and not writing code.

I went for the dual tandem bar / different focal length setups for awhile and just gave up as the operation was awkward for unattended automated imaging for my goals. APPC Pro does pretty good with my tandem setups, (Scopes are aligned with minimum cone)  but I get better unguided results at higher focal lengths with an individual setup. (Mach1, AP900, AP1200)

John


Just asking a general forward thinking question.

John,

Surely you are making this too hard.  My plastic pipe came from Home Depot.  For the ends I got fittings that slipped over the outside of the pipe and was threaded for a cap.  It does not restrict the pipe throat at all.  And forget the pipe dope.  I just used epoxy.  Cheaper :)
fritz k

 

I don't think I can control my Sony mirrorless with Maxim, so I will be using an independent app for camera control.
Or worst case -- a plug-in timer/intervalometer.

The Camera and the NUC are both attached to the tracking platform, so all the cabling will be tied down for camera control. (USB-C)

The mount is the only stationary thing that the NUC needs to control, and it will indeed being sending UDP over wifi to the StarTech box.
It's working flawless since it turned up now on UDP, zero comm errors in APCC.

Mike

--

OK, minutes later here, but after... hours... trying to get this to work, I changed the STAR TECH driver to use UDP instead of TCP and everything has been perfect since. I am now controlling my mount over wifi with that adapter mounted to my pier.

Any words of warning about using Eltima devices on both ends of APCC? (or words of validation, I'll take that too)

Mike

I have an Intel NUC computer mounted on top of my telescope.

I want the simplest tether possible from pier to scope -- DC power and ground.

The NUC connects to my WI-FI access point and talks to a STAR TECH Ethernet->RS232 adapter which connects to my AP1200 GTO CP3.
The device: https://www.startech.com/en-us/networking-io/netrs2321p

STAR TECH seems to create an ELTIMA virtual serial port on the NUC to handle this device.
It looks like APCC is also creating ELTIMA ports. 

APCC seems to go bonkers trying to talk to the mount.  Any tips ? (like.. give up, is APCC compatible with Eltima port as main port?)

Cheers
Mike in Alaska