Meridian Flip Fail

Sequence Generator
21

Agould,

While I have a Gemini-2, I don't have a G11.  My Mi-250 has much stricter tolerances for its limits.  I know, I should buy a new mount to go with the observatory control hardware that I apparently need as well.

Chris

22

2.4 will have some fairly basic weather station support. Essentially it will implement the “Is Safe To Open” option using the ASCOM Safety Monitor.

If the safety monitor reports “Unsafe” it will run your end of sequence options. It will do this whether a sequence is running or not. It will not attempt to restart the sequence when it is safe. It’s a one shot kind of thing at the moment.

We hope to release an initial beta next week.

Thanks,
Jared

23

That’ll give me exactly what I need. I’d much rather lose a night than a mount or camera.

Thanks for that implementation. It means the world!

Frank, his put on recreating your sequence is a good one. It always bites me.

Chris

24

Jared,

Sorry for the delay…just back from a short business trip.

I keep my SGPro current, and this equipment profile is about 1 month or so old, However I don’t recall if I created it from scratch or took a saved one and modified it and saved it as a new profile. I could create one from scratch and reinstall the latest Gemini drivers and see if it works under those condition, but the weekend weather is not promising. The sequence was created using the create new sequence from profile and is about two weeks old. If it is due to using an old profile, does that mean Ihave to recreate all my profiles again?

I usually run my scope through the generic hub so I have a few things connected to it. However, I did a straight solo connection with the Gemini driver and had the same flip problems.

I get the ASCOM error if I try a manual flip or an auto flip and have had it for a while. I logged the error message in my notebook from a few months ago and have tried to schedule my imaging to avoid flips or just do one with the mount hand control at the right time.

Frank Z…

25

Jared,

I found out from Tom that this might be a common error with G2s they’ve been working on forever. Apparently the G2 will only flip when you command a slew and it’s within the range. Is it possible to have an option to do a slew versus using the SetSideOfPier option? Apparently commanding a slew works just fine…

Chris

26 
I usually run my scope through the generic hub so I have a few things connected to it. However, I did a straight solo connection with the Gemini driver and had the same flip problems.

Frank,
There’s no reason to do this. Most modern drivers will create their own virtual hub. So just connect everything directly to the Gemini ASCOM driver.

Commanding a slew definitely does not work on my G1 when I’m past the meridian. If it can access it there from that position it will just slew there rather than flipping.

The right fix is to address the issue where it lies. It sounds like Tom and crew are currently working towards that.

Also lets try and avoid cross posting here. It just confuses folks reading the threads.

Thanks,
Jared

27

Jared,

Apparently they’re not. The email Tom sent me was in reference to ACP. Apparently he’d been trying to do a software fix for it for years with little to show for it. You’re right, you’d hope that using SetSideOfPier would do exactly that… but apparently it doesn’t and Rene hasn’t got around to working out the difference between what ASCOM is asking and what the mount is doing.

Chris

28

Well, if they can’t get it working then they should set the “CanSetSideOfPier” option to false, in which case SGP will command a slew. But SideOfPier is the preferred method as it allows flipping prior to the meridian. So if the driver says it’s implemented we take their word for it and use that. We can’t be expected to know if the driver is broken though.

If the ASCOM driver is broken it should be addressed, or the functionality should be removed. This must be strictly a G2 thing as meridian flips are pretty rock solid with my G1. However I have to use 1.0.18.0 as the later builds actually do break meridian flip functionality as it will report the incorrect side of pier :-/

Thanks,
Jared

29

Yea, I’ll forward you the email Tom sent me. I think I got it right… he didn’t seem to want to rock the boat on it. But, like you said, I would like to see it fixed! :smile:

30

Yes, he is aware of the issue. He was going to supply a new driver to test
but I haven’t seen anything yet.

Thanks,

Jared Wellman
Co-Owner and Developer
Main Sequence Software
www.mainsequencesoftware.com