Hello Eric,

Thanks for investigating the issue and finding the bug. I fixed the Sync issue as you proposed, but I'm not sure about guiding. If Q# is required, this would stop guiding in BOTH axis, wouldn't it? So you can't have two pulses at the same time? say 3000 ms for RA, and 1000 ms for DE running at the same time? If the DE expires after 1000 ms, then issuing Q# would stop the RA pulse, wouldn't it?

Did this guiding issue ever get resolved? I have the RST-135 running for the very first time tonight, and guiding always fails. It begins calibrating RA, the mount moves back and forth, then goes to DC and it moves one direction and keeps going, never stopping. Eventually the guide star is lost, and guiding fails. This is the case for both PHD2 and Ekos guiding. I've tried StellarMate 1.5.4 with EKOS 3.5.0, and on my Mac remotely connected to the stellar mate running EKOS 3.4.3.

I'm able to boot the mount, home, and activate GPS. Then issue goto command from EKOS. Solve and sync, then goto gets accurate. Then I try guiding after this point and it fails.

Hi Andrew,
I have an RST-135 and I'm having the exact same problem you're seeing even with the latest release of Stellarmate. Running the mount with Windows / ASCOM the mount works without a hitch. I've also heard it works fine with the ZWO ASIair Pro and I'll be testing that shortly. At this time I can't recommend Stellarmate and the Rainbow mounts as a working combination. Hopefully, it'll get fixed soon.

Bill Clugston

Thank you for your feedback Bill.

Has the command set been updated? Anyone has access to the latest command set?

Alright, I took a look at the last command set I received from Rainbow back in June and they indeed added separate commands to stop motion axis separately. I just added this now to the driver so hopefully this fixes the guiding issue. Furthermore, I added functionality to send the mount location and time back to Ekos (in case you want to use the mount as the time/location source), and finally, I added RST-300 to the list of drivers. Please test with the next nightly builds.

If you're using StellarMate, then you can either switch to Beta channel (from App), or you can login to VNC to StellarMate, and open console and type in this command:

This should install the latest INDI code directly from Github.

Thanks Jasem, I’ll try the StellarMate update next clear night.

Thanks Jasem,
I'll update the software and hope for a clear night sometime during December. Not always an easy thing to find in the Seattle area during the winter months

Bill

Jasem, you rock! That last fix solved the guiding problem. I managed to get everything fired up and tested about a half-hour before a cold front rolled in and clouded everything out. The RST-135 slewed to Mirfak and plate-solved no problem. I then cleared the old calibration info out of Ekos and told Ekos to pick a star and start guiding. And that is exactly what it did!

Stopped guiding and slewed to M43, plate solved, and then clicked on guide again. Ekos worked flawlessly and was guiding and taking 30-second subs until the clouds rolled in and blocked the sky. Looking at the long-term weather forecast it'll be at least 2 weeks before I can test again. Maybe Andrew will get a shot at testing.

Bill

Jasem, I can confirm, it's all working well now! Thanks! Happily guiding away.

Just woke up to check the nightly session and found the meridian flip didn't happen. KStars was crashed when I came to it this morning, and I had to restart the Raspberry Pi.

The mount automatically stops tracking at the meridian, this is the default behavior. So I set the flip of HA > .10 degrees, thinking it would sit idle not tracking for a minute or two, then issue the GOTO command to slew, but it appears that did not happen. I didn't have logging on, but do have the Analyze tab data. It shows the guiding stopped right where the flip was supposed to happen. I can only assume when the mount stopped tracking, guiding failed. Could this be why the flip didn't happen as possibly the schedule aborted? But the Analyze tab shows it still took images for three more hours despite it having 6 more hours until twilight where I requested it stop. So this must have been where the crash occurred. The mount was physically on the west side of the pier facing east still, so the GOTO command was never issued to move it east, facing west.



I'm thinking I'll just set it to flip right at the meridian, and hopefully the clocks in both the mount and EKOS match so that it doesn't issue the command a second or so early. I'm not really sure what other options there are. I've had successful flips with ASIAir, and NINA on PC using the ASCOM driver (set to flip 5 minutes after meridian).

Any suggestions or thoughts?

I have the Rainbow Astro RST 400 which uses the same ascom driver as the RST 135. My RST 400 has a guiding issue still today. The star is driven right off the screen and can not be tracked. Additional when I stop guiding the mount just keeps on going. I have to bring up the joystick control and hit the stop command to keep it from continuing on. I tried reducing the guide rate, and the pulse duration for calibration no change. Any help please... Bruce

I also submit a ticket for plate solving not working. I think I 7nderstand why, the driver is not passing pointing data to the solver.... Bruce