I spoke to soon Jochym, 10 minutes ago I did a normal GoTo and the scope is still hunting up and down.

Could it be something to do with tracking? as it is "slewing with tracking"

The hunting starts as soon as tracking turns back on after the slew. If one turns off tracking while it is hunting the hunting stops. If you turn tracking off and then quickly on again the hunting starts again. If you turn tracking off and wait about 5 seconds before turning it back on the hunting stops.

This doesn't happen for every goto but if I do goto's between Mizar and Alioth (in Ursa Major) it happens about 70% of the time. Nothing special about these two target except that they are close together and further testing doing goto's between other close targets shows that this seems to be the problem. This is probably why "slew to target" in the aligment tool shows the problem because it is just making small goto moves. A bit further testing and I can get the hunting virtually 100% percent of the time if the angular distance between the start and finish target is less than about 2 degrees.

Is there a setting for the settle time before tracking starts after a slew?

I hope this helps, if you want me to try anything just ask, I am a software engineer so can poke around in code if required.

Ken

P.S. I have tried putting a 10 second delay in the code (sleep(10) after the goto before turning tracking on but it doesn't help, as soon as the tracking kicks in the hunting starts. Manually stopping tracking for 10 seconds and re-starting tracking fixes it.



 

So as they say ASSUME makes an ass out of u and me.

AstroGene1000 was correct it is backlash settings on the scope that is causing the problem, I zeroed all the backlash settings and now I can't get it to hunt on a goto.

So I think this issue is closed but a note needs to go in the driver details that the backlash settings on the scope can cause this behaviour.

Ken

You were right Astrogene1000, I zeroed the backlash values and now it is OK, thanks you.

Good to hear your seeking is resolved.

Question though, in AltAz mode does it ever get to the actual requested position -exactly- ?
I found in EQ mode it would always be hunting in ALT, from a post I did earlier in this thread the ALT rate never went to 0 and the reported DEC never matched exactly the requested and would change over time
09:53:05.081: [INFO] ReadScopeStatus - RA 20.812913 hours DEC -9.423441 degrees
09:53:06.168: [INFO] Tracking - Calculated Alt -15.151356 deg ; Az 156.548387 deg
09:53:06.169: [INFO] Target (AltAz): -15.151356 156.548387 Scope (AltAz) -15.100665 156.304250
09:53:06.169: [INFO] TimerHit - Tracking AltRate -3040 AzRate 14647 ; Pos diff (deg): Alt: -0.052828 Az: 0.240476

Where are you getting this info from?
 

I took the existing Driver DEBUG outputs and put on INFO if (TraceThisTick) LOGF_DEBUG("TimerHit - Tracking AltRate %d AzRate %d ; Pos diff (deg): Alt: %f Az: %f", altRate, azRate, AltAz.alt - AAzero.alt, anglediff(AltAz.az, AAzero.az));
  github.com/indilib/indi-3rdparty/blob/ma...aux/celestronaux.cpp

Are you testing the main branch or the recent development branch (github.com/indilib/indi-3rdparty/pull/348)?

If possible, run the development branch - we have re-worked the tracking code. The old one is going to be replaced anyway - so your testing will be more useful with new code (and it seems to work better in my tests).

If I do a GoTo in Alt/Az mode and then look at the co-ordinates on the hand controller they match and do not change.

Hi Jochym, I have been testing the main branch, I will now clone your repo and test with that.

Ken

Sure:
For one time testing you can just get:
<code>
github.com/jochym/indi-3rdparty/archive/...ads/celestronAUX.zip
</code>
and unpack it always points to the head of the branch. Be warned, it is over 100MB and you will need to re-download it for every change you would like to test.
So it is *much* better to check out the branch with git:<code>
git clone github.com/jochym/indi-3rdparty.git
cd indi-3rdparty
git checkout celestronAUX
git pull
</code>
Each time you need to refresh the repo you just go to the directory and execute <code>git pull</code> the initial download is large (536MB at the moment) but each update is tiny. And you can switch to different branches and remote sources without downloading it again. Chose your poison - as they say [/code][/code]

Hi Jochym,
I have had two sessions now with your 0.9 version on my NexStar 6SE Alt/Az with no problems and the tracking seems a little better. I left the scope tracking for over two hours without much deviation.

One thing I have noticed that is a little strange is that on a goto sometimes the scope sets off in one direction and then after about 90 degrees in Azimuth reverses direction going back past the origin to the target. It is not a big deal just a little disconcerting when the scope sets off in the wrong direction initially.

This doesn’t appear to be related to the cable wrap position.

BTW cable wrap works well.

Ken

Hi I have a CGEM DX. I’m following the Equatorial sync instructions. I’m puzzled by the instruction to rotate by +6 hours HA. If you start at -3 hours HA, this will be a meridian flip correct? But it doesn’t say to change DE. How do I do this?