i have to say i like the idea of sgp but i must be terrible at because i seem to get very inconsistent results.
my main problem now is no meridian flip with my gm1000hps. i’ve tried j2000 and jnow, set the right values in slew options in the mount, read about 20 threads on this issue and tried every combination i could think of and just can’t seem to get it to work. the wierder part is 3 times i have been able to manually ‘run’ the flip and it works from sgp…so i reset back to the other side and try to get it to automatically go, it won’t, and then doing it manully fails. i’m using the latest ascom from 10 micron. i’d be happy to try per’s version but i just can’t seem to find a download, and i’d prefer to make it work with a driver that is still being supported and developed. the most common reason for failure in the sgp logs is: ASCOM Telescope: Failed to flip because starting pier side and ending pier side are the same.
any help would be much appreciated because i’ve been messing with it for a few days and am feeling very discouraged.
another thing that just doens’t seem consistent is the autofocusing…sometimes it goes to the preset focuser position and then runs AF…sometimes it doesn’t and it tries from a wrong position and is all messed up, and i burn a bunch of time because it was out of focus. its just very inconsistent.
now i know sgp is super awesome, the guys that develop it are awesome, and it just has to be me or i’m missing something basic about how to use the program. i do computer work for a living so i’m not computer illiterate by any means, however, i have yet to run sgp through the night with multiple targets unattended, and it makes me very frustrated that all these people are doing it yet it just won’t work for me.
Hi there and welcome to the forum. There are a few other 10u owners using SGP and they should be able to help, BarryWilson being one.
I recall there are a number of different settings with the 10u for tracking endpoints. Getting them right and the flip point in SGP is one of the key things.
Hi @rxdeath, @buzz is correct and I have a GM1000HPS in my home observatory working fine with SGP and the latest 10 Micron ascom driver. I also share a remote observatory with my imaging partner and we operate a GM1000HPS and GM2000HPS with SGP and Per’s driver (but may well switch to the 10 Micron ascom driver soon for no reason other than Per’s driver is now aged and always best to have a supported ascom driver).
I have the Flip Slew Tolerance set to 3 degrees and Flip Guide Tolerance set to 5 degrees (there are other settings which work with SGP and I’m sure you’ve read them on the 10 Micron Forum). Set to epoch to JNow as this is the mount’s native epoch; J2000 co-ords will be translated on the fly. My SGP flip settings are:
It is important to remember that SGP won’t automatically command a slew to the other side of the pier unless a sequence is running.
For autofocus, if you provide more information, eg your scope, FL, F ratio, camera, image scale, there are plenty of experienced people who will be able to give advice to help.
Let me know how you progress and I’m more than happy to help, as are people on the 10 Micron forum.
I had a bunch of issues with this and thanks to the guy that wrote Mount Wizzard I was able to resolve it. Seems that some piece of software had set my high limit to 85 degrees and the target I was shooting was M33 which traveled right through the zenith. So I had a 10 degree dead zone and when SGP commanded a slew for a plate solve, the mount would not actually move. Then SGP would check side of pier and see that start and finish were the same. Then it would go into end sequence mode and park the mount.
Getting the flip slew and flip guide tolerance set is important as is making sure the number is bigger in SGP flip settings so that when it does send a slew command the mount is already into its flip area of concern.
And double check you are not getting errors regarding high limit being exceeded. If you are, then you need to download mount wizzard 3 and set it back to 90 degrees.
My problem with the meridian flips is (still) that I have a dead zone from the tripod (I have a TOA130 scope - which is pretty long). With the old 10Micron driver from Frejvall, I could set a negative value for “Minutes Past Meridian Flip”. But with the official 10Micron driver, that’s not possible anymore. Has anybody ever figured out how to do such Meridian Flips with the 10Micron driver?
thanks for replying, i wasn’t sure i’d get any bites:
barry: thanks for responding. most of what you said is stuff i dug up on the forums. all my settings in sgp mimic yours to the T. i know the autoflip won’t work unless a sequence is going, however i should be able to click ‘run’ and initiate it at anytime, this also doens’t work (usually)
mpjfp: i think this is what i’m going to pursue, it seems like something i’m not able to see or fix, so i’ll download MW and see if that holds any clue to wtf is going on.
mstiebeck: i agree, i want the negative value back! i will put something on the 10u forum to see why they are doing this…seems like an easy enough thing to implement.
as far as the autofocus stuff i will deal with that later, i made the mistake of updating a bunch of things to solve this issue and now model creator won’t put points in my mount so i have that headache to deal with after it working for about a year with np.
thanks for responding, i appreciate it and look forward to when i can run unattended on multiple targets throughout the night.
if anyone has a step by step how they got it running or a personal thing they overcame, please chime in! i’ll be sure not to let the thread die and post once i figure it out.
Getting the flip slew and flip guide tolerance set is important as is making sure the number is bigger in SGP flip settings so that when it does send a slew command the mount is already into its flip area of concern.
so i’ve done the typical values of 3 and 5 in the handcontroller, but can you elaborate on what you mean by
as is making sure the number is bigger in SGP flip settings so that when it does send a slew command the mount is already into its flip area of concern.
i have my settings mimiced from buzz’s above, i was using 10 minutes, but changed it to 3 out of desparation.
[11/24/19 20:35:28.884][DEBUG] [Pier Flip Thread] Meridian Flip: Sending Telescope command to execute meridian flip
[11/24/19 20:35:28.987][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] ASCOM Telescope: Pier side is West
[11/24/19 20:35:28.987][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] ASCOM Telescope: attempting pier flip using slew
[11/24/19 20:35:29.057][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Slewing to J2000 RA: 0.707811895695966 (00h42m28.12s) Dec: 41.2953494932918 (41°17’43.26")
[11/24/19 20:35:29.057][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Slew received J2000 coordinates, mount requires JNOW, converting…
[11/24/19 20:35:29.057][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Slewing to JNOW RA: 0.72601 Dec: 41.4059
[11/24/19 20:35:35.853][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Scope reports it is done with synchronous slew, verifying…
[11/24/19 20:35:35.853][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Slewing has completed
[11/24/19 20:35:35.853][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Settling for 1 seconds
[11/24/19 20:35:36.854][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Settling has completed
[11/24/19 20:35:37.431][DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] ASCOM Telescope: Failed to flip because starting pier side and ending pier side are the same!
ok…figured it out. this might be elementary so everyone assumed it was this way, but after following all the other threads my issue was in the driver for 10u. the enable fine slew settings needs to be disabled or you have to have an appropriate flip slew value set…i tried to set mine to zero and it didn’t work, so i turned off the fine slew in the driver and voila! apparently because the target value is less than 2 degrees away from current value, it won’t flip. (wtf is the point of this setting btw???, if i say flip, flip! ) as seems to be the trend on here, nothing to do with sgp, but rather the driver.
in short i think these are the settings for all future people banging their heads against the wall
i’m using 10u firmware 2.15
driver 1.5.0.1
in driver, go to drive tab, have fine movement slew UNCHECKED.
underneath that, enable unattended flip option and confirm
hand control
flip slew tolerance 3 degrees
flip guide tolerance 5 degrees
