The communication between my Losmandy Germini 1 and SGPro has become unstable in relation to ‘Run Sequence’ Commands.
Once connected, the Gemini will respond to commands from the Gemini control pad on the computer when commanded to slew, center or guide, and will respond to the ‘Park with CWD’ command. It will also respond to a command from Carte Du Ceil to slew to a target. Finally, it will always respond to a park command from SGPro.
However, it increasingly refuses to respond following a ‘Run Sequence’ command from SGPro requiring it to slew to the target and then centre in response to a series of plate solves. Over the past few nights, it has responded to the ‘Run Sequence’ command once or twice after repeated failed attempts, but this evening has refused to do so at all, resulting in my having to manually abort the sequence. In the circumstances, it would appear that the behavior concerns a very specific set of serial commands.
I have inspected the bGemini (which was built in 2005) and there do not appear to be any bad connections or shorts. All the soldering is still strong and there is no corrosion. I have also changed the 3v battery and ensured that the power supply is sufficient. I have ensured that ‘Gemini expects J2000 co-ordinates’ is unchecked.
I attach my logs and am grateful for any assistance you can give.
I have noted that SGP is sending the same co-ordinates reported by the scope back to the scope: Here’s an example:
-------- Before the centering command, the mount reports RA=21:00:07, DEC=43:40:31
21:39:48.827 Serial received: TID:13 [0]: :GR, 21:00:07
21:39:48.858 Serial received: TID:13 [0]: :GD, +43:40:31
---------SGP then issues a command to go to RA=21:00:07 and DEC=43:40:31 – exactly the coordinates already centered and reported to SGP, but the goto command is still sent:
---------This results in no movement, as it would do, and RA and DEC still report the same coordinates:
21:39:50.971 IT:Slewing.Get TID:10 [Enter] False
21:39:52.462 Serial received: TID:13 [0]: :GR, 21:00:07
21:39:52.490 Serial received: TID:13 [0]: :GD, +43:40:31
I cannot understand why during the plate solving process SGP is simply repeating back to the mount the co-ordinates the mount has sent it.
Maybe I am not understanding… Why does this matter? If the scope is directed to move to the position it is already at, it should ignore the command and report that it is done (but the mount gets to decide this, not SGPro… the mount may want to do other things like update a model etc…). It is part of the centering process to move to the reference frame and SGPro does not check if the scope is already pointed there. In any case, auto centering has been this way for a decade now and you seem to be implying that this is a recent issue (I think)?