After the first 100 days with SGP, I think I managed to understand almost all the functions important to me. My setup:
- Mount: Vixen GP with Skywatcher SynScan GoTo kit upgrade
- ASCOM Driver: EQMOD
- Guiding: PHD-2, QHY5L-IIc camera and 60mm f/4 finder
- Scope: 80mm f/7 ED (f= 552mm)
- Camera: EOS 1000D
- Windows 7, 64bit. Locale: German(de)
- SGP V2.4.1.10
Everything works as expected, except the meridian flip, where a lot of funny and not so funny things happen. Yesterday night I decided to do some tests. The complete log is here:
www.anrs.de/atm/sg_logfile_20150802231620.zip
As it is a bit longish and has lots of sequence aborts, I have extracted and commented a subset of it for just one test-run of the meridian flip:
www.anrs.de/atm/sg_logfile_only_the_flip.zip
Regarding this flip, I have two questions:
- The slew goes to a different target as the one indicated by the pre-flip solve:
ā¦
[02.08.2015 23:54:49] [DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Plate solving scope frame successful, scope is synced, writing FITs header infoā¦
[02.08.2015 23:54:49] [DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Checking to see if solve might be badā¦
[02.08.2015 23:54:49] [DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] User chose to abort sequence due to bad solveā¦ ļ ā This is not true, the user did not do such a thing.
[02.08.2015 23:54:49] [DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Syncing to J2000 RA: 19,0089804664176 Dec: 33,0324069113262
ā¦
[02.08.2015 23:54:59] [DEBUG] [Pier Flip Thread] Meridian Flip: Sending Telescope command to execute meridian flip
[02.08.2015 23:54:59] [DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] ASCOM Telescope: Pier side is West
[02.08.2015 23:54:59] [DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] ASCOM Telescope: attempting pier flip using slew
[02.08.2015 23:54:59] [DEBUG] [Telescope Thread] Telescope: Slewing to J2000 RA: 18,8690048106093 Dec: 29,2090110085227
Is this by design? I think it would be more efficient to use the actual target for the flip. The subsequent centering is fortunately done using the original target coordinates.
- In the verification and centering frames the stars are more or less trailed in the east-west direction. One example (raw fit-file):
www.anrs.de/atm/FunnySolveFrame01.zip
Some of these frames can be solved by the local all sky solver, but I wonder what coordinates this returns. This might be the reason why the centering did not work but the recovery sequence was able to center, on the first attempt, to better than 10pix.
Anyway, the question is, why the trailing. One possibility is that the time stamps in the log do not reflect the actual order of the events (the slewing and the capture are done in different threads) and the capture starts before the mount reaches the final position. Another possibility is that EQMOD enthusiastically reports āend of slewā to early.
In this context, it might be useful to have a ākeep solve framesā flag.
Best regards,
Horia