Unable to get SGP and GNS to talk to each other

I access my obs laptop via Teamviewer from a PC in my house. The obs is in the backyard and connected via wifi. Can GNS and SGP work this way? The GNS manual calls this “the most difficult case,” and I’m definitely not a techie, so I’m really getting nowhere. I configured the Monitoring System on SGP, but I couldn’t get the GNS command line instructions to run on the laptop side, and got no response to the validate button on the phone side. Ah, the downside of success: normal folks start wanting to use it too! :wink:

If GNS won’t work this way, can anyone suggest an alternative? Last week observers 5 miles away from me experienced a freak local thunderstorm. It didn’t hit me, which was a good thing, because I was sound asleep while my rig was imaging. But finding out about it the next day was quite a wake up call. Ideally I’d like something that would wake me up when PHD2 loses the guide star.

TIA - Kevin

I ended up using the email/text message setup…if you have texting it works great…you have to google or go to your cellphone provider website for the SMTP settings…I got mine from a google search.

Then the phone just sits next to me when sleeping …it does send a text when phd loses the guide star.

Hope this helps…

Dennis

Are you trying to start GNS client on the Windows machine manually? If so,
this is not permitted. You must ensure that all instances of GNS are
terminated prior to starting SGPro and allow SGPro to start its own.

Ken, does that mean that I don’t have to do anything at all - ever - on the PC side? The GNS manual seems to say I have to run some command line stuff to “check” it on the PC to make sure that it installed correctly, and that’s what I tried to do. But I never got any response to that on the PC side anyway.

Dennis, I may be stuck with email/text, but I doubt that a single text alert noise will wake me from a deep sleep. I gather that GNS actually gives you a continuous alarm that you have to turn off. At least I hope it does. Without testing it, it’s hard for me to figure out what GNS really does.

Kevin

Kevin,
I use email/text alerts and when I get a text alert I have my phone set to play a song until I acknowledge the text. On a smart phone you should be able to set a custom notification for a specific email or phone number. Send yourself a test email/text from SGP and when it comes up on your phone use that to set the custom notification to a song.

Yes. You can check if GNS is working by starting the Windows client
manually. After that, you must shut it down. At that point you can even
uninstall it if you’d like. SGPro carries it own version of the client and
needs to start it on its own. If a copy is already running it will block
the ports that SGPro needs to use.

Joel, I just figured that out! I didn’t realize before this that I could set texts to use ringtones. Experience on public transit suggests I’ll have no trouble finding a ringtone annoying enough to wake me.

Ken, I’ll try that out. Hopefully I’ll get GNS to work. But the text approach may be all that I need.

Thanks for helping out a non-techie. This may save my whole rig one night!

Kevin

Okay, I’ve got email working. Yahoo failed, my ISP failed, but third time’s a charm and Gmail worked. Even though it creeps me out to give my phone number to Google I guess I can live with it. :smile: GNS still won’t connect, but that’s okay.

BTW, as I mentioned my dread is an unexpected shower. I set the Notification to errors only. Is that best? With clouds PHD2 will lose the guide star, and I assume that will lead quickly to an error message. Is that correct? Does that error message come before the exposure finishes, or does it wait until it’s completed?

Thanks again for all the help.

Kevin

I have everything checked except the Status updates and the Heartbeat option. But, that is up to you , try different settings. You may end up getting texts way more often than necessary. When I lose the guide star , that is the message I get…Guide Star Lost…I really can’t tell how quickly it notifies me,… if I remember correctly even though the guide star is lost , the camera is still finishing that particular sub. The rest of the settings are within sgp telling the camera not to begin the next sub till the guide star is whatever parameters you set it at.

Hope this helps…

Dennis

Depends on how you like to image. If you have recovery mode on, losing a guide star is only a warning level event. If SGPro fails to recover within 90 minutes an error will be issued. If you don’t have recovery on, an error will be issued within 2 minutes of guide star loss (plus whatever routing time the email needs).

Hi Kevin,

just noticed your message here - I’m the author of the GNS, so I’ll be glad to assist if you want to try it out.

Don’t know if this is the best place to do it, or you’d better contact me directly ( jaime - at - lunaticoastro - dot - com).

BTW, and of course, all Kevin said is correct :smile:

Best regards,

jaime

Thanks for the pointers, guys. Ken and Dennis, I think I’ll leave it set for errors now. I don’t use recovery mode, and losing the guide star is the only thing I can think of that would be linked directly to the clouds=rain worry.

Just to be sure, recovery mode is off by default, right?

Jaime, thanks for the kind offer. I’ll start with email notification for now. If I decide to move to GNS, I’ll get in touch.

Kevin

It is, but you can verify by looking at the “LED” image in the lower right corner of SGPro. Green is “On”.

The good news: Clouds rolled in last night ten minutes into my run, and sure enough as soon as PHD2 lost the star it sent me a text. To my surprise, GNS also worked.

The bad news: Clouds rolled in last night ten minutes into my run . . . .

Kevin