If you want to help debug this your best bet is to contact the author directly, their email is in the sources.

From what I can see this is designed for an alt az mounted scope, not a polar mounted scope such as an AVX.

The driver looks like early beta to me, really only of use for testing and debugging.

All mounts need to have some sort of alignment so the relationship between axis positions and celestial positions can be determined. This need not be more than specifying the initial pointing direction, mount type, position and time. With an AVX using the HC set the mount to the index marks - counterweight down, dec 90 - and do a quick align.

Went to site and this was the only thing I saw. Am I missing another site?

indi_celestron_aux is not included with indi-full by default. It is a new separate driver and at the moment must be installed from source. You can install current version of the driver from the Nightly INDI PPA. for Ubuntu 16.04 or newer. It will probably migrate int main PPA at next release. This driver is a full replacement for the NexStar Evolution driver which will be discontinued in the near future.

Warning: This is a new, beta-quality driver and should be treated as such. There are no known functional issues with it and only one long-runtime-stability issue. Nevertheless, the driver should not be left operational unattended.

Cheers
Jim

StellarMate OS v1.5.3 is out! Major Highlights:

+ Raspberry PI4 8GB variant Support.
+ Mount Bluetooth Pairing.
+ Mallincam cameras support.
+ High Continuous Gain (HCG) support for multiple cameras.
+ New Celestron Auxiliary driver (no handset!)
+ Canon CR3 format support.
+ Preliminary support for RPI High Quality Camera.
+ New Native Pentax DSLR drivers.
+ Always-on Hotspot mode.
+ Updated INDI Library v1.8.6 and KStars 3.4.3.

I am now using 1.5.3 and can verify that the driver is included in the standard build. The questions I have are does it support the AVX. Although the beta description was that this driver was tested with two of the Celestron mounts. That does not mean those are the only two mounts that it supports. CPC EQ mount was the other model. So not just for alt az mounts.

I have messaged the two people listed on the beta, earlier today.

If we can get this working this could be a major benefit to all Celestron users. I can’t be the only one interested in this driver. This is like EQMOD for the Celestron mounts. If the driver is included in the standard SM build, my expectation is that we should be getting support on how to use it.

I have a Celestron CGX mount, trust me I'm interested but I do not have a NexStar Evolution or CPC mount, these are the Alt-Az mounts that Celestron sells. I was looking at the AUX, RJ45 and RS-232 connections and the requirements. These have strict voltage requirements, I would be very careful with this setup.

Note: I had to send my AVX back to Celestron years ago due to the strict voltage requirements. The older versions if you inadvertently connected the HC controller to the DEC motor board or AUX it would short circuit the DEC board. They have since redone the plug configuration for the DEC motor board but the voltage requirements are still in place and if you fail to follow them, it will burn a board out.

Cheers
Jim

Celestron AUX is designed to work without the Hand Controller. The HC can be used only as transparent connection port.

This driver uses the alignment procedures offered by Ekos that are based on the alignment subsystem of the indilib.
See the Align tab of Ekos. There is several documentation around.
This is the first step to see correct coordinates in your scope.
Remember that an alignment with ta least two stars can automatically establish if your mount is equatorial or altazimuth oriented.

I developed the serial connection for the driver on my CPC 1100 that has only serials, no USB.
If the AVX mount slew with manual commands from Ekos, this is really good. meaning that the AVX mount can be added to the supported list.

A question: which cable and port are you using? USB or RJ connector? If RJ, how many contacts has the connector?

Fabrizio

Outstanding job Fabrizio, thank you Sir.

Croz is using the Celestron AVX German Equatorial Mount, driver information says it is tested with the Evolution and CPC models only at this time?????



Cheers
Jim

Fabrizio,

Thanks for your reply. I am connecting to the SM pi4 via the USB to the AVX handset. This is the same way I would connect when using the old driver. When I use the telescope control in EKOS and manually slew it works on the AVX. I had a different mount before that use serial, The AVX uses the older mini USB that connects at the bottom of the handset.

I start off by pointing the AVX roughly towards Polaris. With the AVX in home position, and at the index marks and weights down... but over the last few days I’ve been testing in the day with the simulators.

When I plates solve and sync, it does not overwrite the coordinates already listed under Telescope coordinates JNOW in EKOS. Even though that the solve worked correctly. The AVX mount is the only real accessory plugged into SM. All other components are simulators. Is there anything that is needed to be manually added under the INDI configuration? In the alignment tab everything is empty.

CPC is an Alt-Az mount.

www.celestron.com/collections/cpc-computerized-telescopes

The Evolution is the single yoke GoTo and the CPC are the dual yoke GoTo telescopes


Cheers
Jim

A mount and a ccd, even simulated, it is the minimum required for alignment with Ekos.

Take into account that the driver was more extensively tested in altazimuth mode with real images by the driver core developer Pawel T. Jochym, because his scope is altazimuth.
In these days, I'm doing more alignment tests on the driver in equatorial mode. Since my scope is off site now, for some maintenance, I'm working with ccd simulator. When I have some results, I'll post them.

I’ve been trying again today with the simulators. It seems like I’m having better success. I remove the slew limits from the AVX, I think these were causing some problems. I also manually inputted the coordinates into the telescope tab in EKOS. The scope slewed to a crazy position after I applied the coordinates. I then just reset the AVX to the home position. I was able to connect, and then plates solve/sync. After doing this I was able to slew and then plate solve and sync to other stars. I was getting occasional crashes in EKOS. The only concern I have is that when I tried to slew to a star near the zenith, the mount was not even close to pointing in the correct direction. This might be because I was using the simulators? It’s been cloudy so I haven’t been able to try anything real.
EKOS really hates plate solving near the pole! I know I’ve seen others warn about this. I used to use a different software that I would start with Polaris and then solve other stars afterwards.

Slewing near zenith may be a problem because of the coordinate computation made into two steps. First target RA/DE is converted into local ALT/AZ, then ALT/AZ is converted into POLAR. The ALT/AZ - POLAR conversion has a singular point at the zenith: here the acceleration of the angular velocity goes to infinite.

I'm curious if anyone has made any progress using the Celestron AUX driver on an EQ setup?

The device page for the driver states the "driver was tested with NexStar Evolution (Alt/Az) and CPC (EQ) mounts".

I have spent several sessions over the past few weeks with some success. The major problem remaining is the alignment is off; despite initial success with solving and syncing.

My setup consists of a Celestron CGEM mount with the SkyPortal WiFi module. Connecting and controlling the mount works correctly, but pointing accuracy is erratic and inconsistent.

I tried following the recommendations of the driver's author (Jochym) from a previous thread:

Celestron SKYQ Support

This involves activating the alignment system and using the built-in math plugin to sync on stars in a triangle. However, the thread was using the older NexstarEvo driver.

Some interesting things I discovered in my testing:

- Since the driver doesn't know the correct home position and the mount's pointing gets worse over use, I found parking the mount at the start, and then moving the mount to the index marks before unparking, allowed me to set and quickly reset back to the home position (North/Polaris).

- Although I am not using any limits, the driver will stop when slewing left of West. No such problems in the East.

- After syncing on multiple stars, I will eventually get the message: "Alpha matrix is singular and cannot be inverted".

In the meantime, I have been using INDI to image and Celestron's PWI to control the mount.