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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

mount and ekos/indi seem out-of-sync

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Pretty regularly, I manage to get in a situation where ekos/indi can't seem to sensibly control my Orion Atlas Pro mount. I assume I have some configuration issue, but I can't see to figure out what that might be.

I run Stellarmate OS (a release I downloaded in early December) but I get similar issues with the current sudo apt-get install version of indi & kstars on a different linux pc.

For instance, the mount will be pointed up (e.g. at orion tonight, about altitude 40-degrees) but mount control says it's pointed below the horizon and therefore won't track, and therefore won't sync. I adjust it so that it is in a position that it things is up (so it will track, so I can sync it) where that position is also up in the sky (for real) and then plate solve and sync. Kstars will then show it pointing correctly on its sky map. Then, however, if I ask it to slew to something very close by, it slews halfway across the sky.

I've tried using the Atlas Pro's handset alignment, and that works fine. But then, when hooking the mount back up to Indi/Ekos, the same problems re-occur (so I don't think the mount itself is the issue).

The time seems right in the Indi control panel's eqmod mount, site management tab (e.g. it's 11:45pm in california on 1/23, and it says UTC 2019-01-24T06:45:05 and UTC offset -8. (Actually, perhaps it should be -7, but that shouldn't cause the magnitude of error I'm seeing). Kstars shows my location and local time properly on its screen, top left and bottom left.

The Lat/Lon in the same tab says Lat 37:26:24 Lon 237:50:13 which I believe is "close" (I actually set it to Lon=-122, but it converts that to 237). Hemisphere says "North".

What usually happens is I struggle with this for an hour, finally somehow get it working via manual sync'ing, plate solving, etc, then am able to take pictures. I've taken astrophotos successfully at least 15 evenings in the past couple months, however, these problems always seem to recur sooner or later.

When I'm in such a mess, What is the procedure to "reset" and start from scratch? Is there a setting I'm missing that I should have set? Are there things I should avoid touching when in such a panic?

What is Align Method = "EQMOD Align" vs "Alignment Subsystem" in the Options tab? Is that relevant?

Should I hit "Clear sync data" in the Sync tab when the scope isn't making sense?

Happy to send logs or whatever might help solve this.
Sorry if I vented a bit :(

Hy
5 years 2 months ago #34012

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Hmmmm, I had a problem almost identical to yours, and mine turned out to be an issue with time offset in Kstars, in the INdI control panel it was correct but Kstars was reporting an -12 hour offset instead of -1, so I had the issues you had.
Now at the time I was using a GPS dongle, and apparently that was the issue, there was a problem with GPS INdI driver.
I removed the GPS but for a while still had the issue.. so in the end I reflashed the SD card and started again without the GPS dongle and all worked fine...
And yes I always clear sync data at the start of every session...
The issue was definitely to do with the time offset, so my advice would be to look into that a bit more...
Not much help I know.. :)
Last edit: 5 years 2 months ago by AstroNerd.
5 years 2 months ago #34014

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I noticed when I just used it, that it said on startup that it was reversing the declination. Should it be doing that? Could that be my issue?
5 years 2 months ago #34015

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It sounds like KStars and Ekos might be out of sync. Isn't there a setting somewhere that controls which overrides the other?
5 years 2 months ago #34022

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Have you got it set on correct hemisphere..? I know it’s an easy mistake to make, but we all do it... :)
5 years 2 months ago #34026

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TL;DR SOLVED, but who know why--perhaps a scope factory reset?

First off: I had the right hemisphere, right time in both Ekos and Kstars, right latitude/longitude.

Went out again tonight, and, starting off parked and pointing at Polaris. Despite that, Indi told me the Declination was -42 or something like that (and altitude below the horizon). I went through the telescope's handset setup and alignment (no problem at all with alignment), but Indi was still off. I tried to set the RA/Dec manually to something like 0,90, but couldn't set it in Indi because "it wasn't tracking", and "it won't track below the horizon". grrrrr. I re-plugged in the handset, found and selected the factory reset button, again re-initialized (time, location, etc) and re-1-star-aligned, and then parked it. (Did parking matter this time?) Re-plugged in the scope to my Raspberry Pi, re-started Indi/Ekos, and magically this time Indi declared Dec=90! It's now happily taking pictures of Horsehead.

So, once again, really don't know what the issue was. My suspicion: that is the indi_eqmod driver gets a bad setting (like, for instance, reverse declination after a meridian flip) stuck in its memory and uses it inappropriately. When that happens, the software is hosed until I accidentally do something to dislodge it. Next time: factory reset, park, and keep my fingers crossed! (But, of course, why would a factory reset affect the indi_eqmod driver? However, the scope was giving me good coordinates when the driver wasn't, so it's likely in the driver...).
5 years 2 months ago #34052

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I think a more likely case is that wronged encoder values were written to ~/.indi/ParkData.xml files. So when EQMod was loaded up, it loaded these non-home encoder values and this why it was pointing off. I will write a standard procedure for this so that other users don't fall victim to this.
5 years 2 months ago #34054

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If this happens again, should I remove that file? Should I edit it a certain way?
It would sure be great to have a workaround just-in-case.

Thanks!
5 years 2 months ago #34058

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5 years 2 months ago #34059

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Thanks. Just wondering, since in my current version of Indi doesn't have the purge-data button (just current, default, and writedata)--it's Stellarmate OS, downloaded this past November, I believe) could I hand-edit that file if I needed to? Or remove it? I notice that currently it has one value for parkposition/axis1position and another different large int for parkposition/axis2position.
5 years 2 months ago #34065

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