I would be massively grateful if anyone could help me with this. I’ve read through forums but can’t find anything that helps…
I have been using EQASCOM with SGP and an HEQ5 mount for a few months now and all as been working fine. With no changes to any settings, I am suddenly getting an error message after a plate solve: ‘error: could not sync to telescope’.
This began with the telescope plate solving and syncing in the park position, then slewing to its target, then plate solving but not centring properly, with the error figure barely changing on each solve for centring.
Now it won’t even do the initial solve and sync, giving me the message: ‘could not sync the telescope’.
Strangely if I change ‘sync behaviour’ to ‘none’ (a setting I never normally use) the telescope will solve and sync in the park position telling me ‘successfully solved the current frame’ and ‘the telescope has been synchronised’. But then it slews very very far off from the target, even the opposite direction. With the setting at ’sync’ it won’t even give me the solve and sync in park position. Not sure whether that sheds light on a possible solution, but I’m just mentioning it in case.
The nudge function in the control panel does move the scope, so there appears to be a working link between SGP and the scope.
The telescope is connected successfully in ‘connect equipment’ in SGP.
Port settings are correct - EQMOD is detecting the correct port and this is shown in EQMOD’’s Toolbox>driver settings and also in Windows Device Manager as the same port.
When I pull up EQASCOM TOOLBOX, ‘setup’ has a button reading ‘ASCOM connect’. I have tried clicking on this so it reads ‘ASCOM disconnect’ but it makes no difference. I have never clicked on this before when the system has been working fine.
A good starting point may be to check the lat/long/time/elevation of the telescope. It could be that the telescope is rejecting the sync as it is too far off?
In lieu of that we’d need logs to see why SGP is complaining about it.
Many thanks for this. I noticed this morning that the co-ordinates entered into EQMOD were way out - it looks like they had reverted to their default setting. I have now corrected them and will test tonight. Could this have led to the error message ‘Could not sync the telescope’?
Just checking: Is the ASCOM setting ‘dialogue-based’ be correct in ASCOM’s ‘user interface’ drop down when using with SGP with plate solving? (Not Carte Ciel for example)
I did look for other answers on the forum - apologies if I have use it incorrectly.
Jared - much appreciated. Fingers crossed that’s the issue and I will be up and running again tonight. It’s frustrating when everything has been rock solid for months, I don’t alter any of the settings and then the equipment suddenly decides it’s not going to work. Many thanks for your help.
Thank you for your help. The coordinates of my location in EQMOD had, inexplicably, reverted to default, giving a location thousands of miles from where I am. That was the issue - the scope is up and running now successfully. All good.
If you want SGP to add sync points to EQMOD’s pointing model, then EQMOD should be set to “Append on Sync” and SGP Sync Behavior should be set to “Sync”.
If on the other hand you do not want SGP to add sync points to EQMOD’s pointing model (because you have a permanent or semi-permanent setup with a valid pointing model that EQMOD loads automatically and/or you do not want it to get cluttered with too many sync points), then EQMOD should be set to “Dialogue Based” and SGP Sync Behavior should be set to “Target Offset”.
EQMOD does not accept syncs if the offset is too large, I think it is 15 degrees. When your location data got corrupted the offset was probably very large and EQMOD rejected the sync, hence the error.
Another suggestion I would make is not to plate solve and sync when pointed at the pole (Given the default park position is counterweights down, pointed at the pole)
A small amount of orthogonality error can have the telescope pointed differently enough to where the mount is pointed to put them a long way apart in RA and that can lead to the mount heading off in unexpected directions on slews. The same can happen after meridian flips too, if your cone/orthogonality error has the scope pointed east of the meridian (So the plate solve will be in the east) when the the mounts reported position is to the west, EQMOD will reject the sync.