INDI Library - Recently Added Listings - Telescopes https://indilib.org/ Fri, 29 Mar 2024 04:04:23 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 Alluna TCS2 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/alluna-tcs2.html

The Telescope-Control-System TCS of ALLUNA Optics has been designed for the remote control of high-quality telescopes. Alluna Optics provides only ASCOM drivers and a Windows EXE program to control the TCS2 Device. The TCS2 can also be controlled by an optional handheld device.

With TCS several telescope functions are controlled and monitored:

  • Air conditioning of the optical tube and the main mirror i.e., primary/secondary mirror heating and ventilation
  • Temperature of ambient (focuser), primary and secondary mirror
  • Focusing on the optics
  • Control of the optionally available CCD Rotator
  • Control of the optionally available robotic Dust Cover
  • Setting configuration parameters
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naheedsa Sun, 11 Feb 2024 05:47:34 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/alluna-tcs2.html
BRESSER Messier EXOS-2 EQ GoTo https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/bresser-messier-exos-2-eq-goto.html ]]> naheedsa Sun, 19 Nov 2023 09:46:54 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/bresser-messier-exos-2-eq-goto.html AHP GT Mount https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/ahp-gt-mount.html naheedsa Sun, 19 Nov 2023 08:17:29 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/ahp-gt-mount.html SkyAdventurer GTi https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skyadventurer-gti.html ]]> naheedsa Sun, 19 Nov 2023 06:40:36 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skyadventurer-gti.html Star Adventurer 2i WiFi https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/star-adventurer-2i-wifi.html ]]> naheedsa Sun, 19 Nov 2023 06:12:53 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/star-adventurer-2i-wifi.html Planewave https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/planewave.html ]]> naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 15:04:09 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/planewave.html Telescope Scripting Gateway https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/telescope-scripting-gateway.html naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 14:54:16 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/telescope-scripting-gateway.html SkyCommander https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skycommander.html ]]> naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 14:40:46 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skycommander.html SynScan Legacy https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/synscan-legacy.html ]]> naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 14:33:13 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/synscan-legacy.html Celestron CPC HC https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/celestron-cpc-hc.html ]]> naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 14:06:27 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/celestron-cpc-hc.html Digital Setting Circle https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/digital-setting-circle.html ]]> naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 13:03:59 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/digital-setting-circle.html ZWO AM5 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/zwo-am5.html ]]> naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 12:50:29 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/zwo-am5.html CRUX TitanTCS https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/crux-titantcs.html ]]> naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 12:42:24 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/crux-titantcs.html iOptron HC8406 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/ioptron-hc8406.html naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 12:37:55 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/ioptron-hc8406.html STAR2000 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/star2000.html naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 12:29:36 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/star2000.html Pegasus NYX-101 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/pegasus-nyx-101.html ]]> naheedsa Thu, 16 Nov 2023 11:59:50 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/pegasus-nyx-101.html OpenAstroTech https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/openastrotech-mounts.html

Installation

This driver for OpenAstroTech mounts is included with INDI v1.9.9+

Features

The OpenAstroTech driver extends the LX200 GPS that was previously used driver and adds some extra features:

  • Focusing with relative (instead of time based) movements and backlash compensation.
  • Support for the Auto Polar Alignment extension.
  • Custom "Meade Command" field. Enter a command like ":GVP#" and work with the responses until there's real support for the feature you're missing.

Under development are these items, but if you know the Meade commands you can use them by just using the "Meade Command" field:

  • RA Homing (you need to have the RA Homing extension installed)
  • DEC Homing
  • DEC Limits

Operation

Let KStars set the time/date and simply operate like you normally would. More information can be found on the wiki.

Issues

There are no known bugs for this driver. If you found a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at SourceForge. (You can log in with a variety of existing accounts, including Google, Yahoo and OpenID.)

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naheedsa Wed, 05 Oct 2022 07:18:50 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/openastrotech-mounts.html
Astrophysics V2 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/astrophysics/astrophysics-v2.html

Installation

Included with libindi v1.9.5+. For Ubuntu it is recommended to install the latest development version:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libindi

Features

This driver supports Astro-Physics mounts over a serial connection with a firmware version of 'V' or newer.

This driver is a re-write of the previous "experimental" driver. It was written with the aim of full automation using Ekos. It is a new driver with limited user testing. Because of this, we urge you to take it slowly and make sure you carefully supervise use of the driver for several nights until you are comfortable that it is operating properly. 

Operation

This driver is under development and as such should be considered in a BETA state.  This means you are testing the driver as much as using it.

That said it has been used for imaging and appears to operate correctly.  Use common sense when testing this driver - be near the mount whenever slewing or parking just in case!  

First Time 

  • When using the driver for the first time, ensure to set the telescope's aperture and focal length in the Options tab.
  • Set the geographic location and park position in the Site Management tab.
  • Use one of the predefined "ParkTo" positions of PARK1/PARK2/PARK3/PARk4. They are the only park positions supported. These are defined in this document from Astro-Physics: PARK POSITIONS
  • Make sure the "Unpark From" option on the Main is set to "Last Parked".  This is the safest option since it will let the mount determine its position based on where it was last parked.  The only reason to use a different setting is if the mount seems to have lost sense of where it is and you want to start from a predefined position.
  • Do not try parking the mount until this position is defined!
  • Save these options using the "Save"  button on the Options tab or else the changes will be loss when the driver is closed.

Initialization 

The mount will automatically be initialized by the driver - the user is not required to do anything extra.

Main Control 

APV2bMain

  • Connect: You can manually connect/disconnect to the mount.
  • UnparkFrom?: This should usually be set to LastParked. That means when you unpark, the mount remembers where it was last pointing, and as long as the geography and time are properly set in the mount, and the user has not move the mount's pointing position manually, it should be able to recover its position. You can force it to assume it is in the Park1, Park2, Park3, or Park4 position, but, of course, please make sure it really is. These are positions defined in this document from Astro-Physics: PARK POSITIONS 
  • ParkTo?: Tell the mount which of the above 4 park positions should be used.
  • Manual Set Parked: This is a button to help fix a problematic mount. You can force the mount to consider itself parked whereever it is pointing by pressing this button. After doing that, you would manually place it in a known park position, set UnparkFrom? to that position, and click unpark. Carefully test to make sure the mount is acting reasonably. Please supervise very carefully and be prepared to stop motion (possibly with a power switch). After that it is highly recommended to change UnparkFrom back to LastParked.

WARNING - Leave this option at "Last Parked" unless you know what you are doing.  If you start the driver up and it is set to something besides "Last Parked" and the mount is not actually in the configured PARK position it will be very confused about where it is really pointing and lead to improper slews that may cause a pier strike!

Connection

APV2Connection

The main control here is the port to connect to. The driver being used, and its version are also displayed.

Options

astrophysics options

The Options tab is used to set debugging and other configuration options, as well as being able to load and save configurations.

  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Simulation: Enable to disable simulation mode for testing purposes.
  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Snoop Devices: Indicate which devices the driver should communicate with:
    • GPS: If using a GPS driver (e.g. INDI GPSD) then enter its name here. EQMod shall sync its time and location settings from the GPS driver.
    • Dome: If using a Dome driver, put its name here so that Dome Parking Policy can be applied.
  • Dome Parking Policy

    If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount before parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.

    • Ignore dome: Take no action when dome parks or unparks.
    • Dome locksPrevent the mount from unparking when dome is parked.
    • Dome parks: Park the mount if dome starts parking. This will disable the locking for dome parking, EVEN IF MOUNT PARKING FAILS.
    • Both: Dome locks & Dome parks policies are applied.
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in Scope Name property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Enable or Disable joystick support. An INDI Joystick driver must be running for this function to work. For more details, check the INDI Telescope Joystick tutorial.

Motion Control

astrophysics motion

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and guide controls are configured.

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Rate of manual motion control above when 1x equals sidereal rate.
  • PEC Playback: Controls whether PEC correction are enabled.
  • GOTO Rate: Rate of motion for GOTO operations.
  • Swap Buttons: Reverse direction mount moves.
  • Sync: Controls whether SYNC or RECAL is used for syncs.  The recommended setting is :CMR# to use RECAL!

Site Management

SiteManagement

 

Time and Location are configured in the Site Management tab.

  • UTC: UTC time and offsets must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The UTC offset is in hours. East is positive and west is negative.
  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.
  • Firmware: (read only) display of the internal firmware of the mount.
  • AP sidereal time: (read only) display of the sidereal time, as computed by the AP mount.
  • AP UTC Offset: (read only) display of the internal UTC offset value. Note this will not be negative.

Guide

astrophysics guide 

Guide related option:

  • Guide N/S/W/E: Guiding pulses durations in milliseconds. This property is meant for guider application (e.g. PHD2) and not intended to be used directly.
  • Guide Rate: Guiding Rate for RA & DE. Example: 0.25 means the mount shall move at 25% of the sidereal rate when the pulse is active. The sideral rate is ~15.04 arcseconds per second. So at 0.25x, the mount shall move 0.25*15.04 = 3.76 arcsecond per second. When receving a pulse for 1000ms, the total theoritical motion 3.76 arcseconds.  The recommended value is 1.0x.

Issues

  • The lx200ap_v2 driver has been tested successfully by several folks, but not the number typical of a standard product. Please be aware and be observant of the mount when doing slews and parking the first several times you use the driver.
  • If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at GitHub.

 

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hy Mon, 14 Mar 2022 04:35:10 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/astrophysics/astrophysics-v2.html
Rainbow Astro https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/rainbow-astro.html ]]> sywong2000 Thu, 16 Dec 2021 07:47:26 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/rainbow-astro.html Astrotrac 360 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/astrotrac-360.html

Installation

INDI Astrotrac 360 Driver is released with INDI Library >= v1.9.2 To Install the driver under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indi-bin

Features

This INDI Astrotrac driver interacts with Astrotrac mounts via WiFi. It fully supports all the mount features and provides support for a mount model powered by INDI Alignment Subsystem. This results in highly accurate GOTOs when used with a plate solving software (e.g. Ekos) as the driver compensates for differences between the sky and mount coordinates on the fly.

Current features are:

  • Goto/Slew/Sync.
  • Park/Unpark with configurable custom parking positions.
  • Custom tracking rates
  • Custom acceleration rates
  • Guiding
  • Sidereal, lunar, solar and custom trackrates
  • Full joystick support
  • Mount modelling

Main Control

Connectivity

The driver communicates with the mount over the netwrok. Therefore, before establishing connection to the mount, you must set the mount's IP address and port in the Connection tab. Please ensure the machine running the driver is on the same network as the mount so they can talk to each other.

Connection

Please note 2 ways to connect RA/DEC drives

  1. RA power first then once on then after 15 or so seconds connect cable from RA to DEC , that should trigger the RA to configure the DEC as a DEC automatically
  2. However with some peoples mounts that doesn’t happen due to some issue that Richard from Astrotrac does not know how to fix in which case you have to manually configure the DEC drive as a DEC drive:
    1. In this case you can connect the RA and DEC connecting cable before powering on everything or after it does not matter
    2. You then connect to the drive you will configure as a DEC drive and connect to its wifi (AstroTrac360:RA:XX.XX.XX.XX) from any device can be same or for example your phone. Navigate to the IP address via the browser and go to the console (in the UI)
    3. You type 1i50 and hit enter
    4. The drive will now disconnect itself and in a few moments will appear as AstroTrac360:DEC:XX.XX.XX.XX ( WHERE XX IS THE IP address OF YOUR DRIVE)
    5. Now the RA drive will be able to send commands via the cable to control the DEC drive

For more information on communication with the mount, you can check a detailed INDI thread on the subject.

Operation

By default, the mount type is set to German-Equatorial (GEM) and can be switched to Single-ARM mode if desired. This must be done before connecting to the mount.

Main Control

The main control tab is where the primary control of Astrotrac takes place. To track an object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press Set. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to Sidereal tracking. Slew mode is different from track mode in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete. To sync, the mount must be already tracking. First change mode to Sync, then enter the desired coordinates then press Set. Users will rarely use this driver controls directly since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and sync the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.

Four tracking modes are supported: Sidereal, Lunar, Solar, and Custom. When using Custom mode, the rates defined in Track Rates shall be used. Tracking can be enganged and disenganged by toggling the Tracking property. The units are arcseconds per second.

Options

 Under the options tab, you can configure many parameters before and after you connect to the mount.

Options

  • Snoop Devices: Indicate which devices Paramount should communicate with:
    • GPS: If using a GPS driver (e.g. INDI GPSD) then enter its name here. EQMod shall sync its time and location settings from the GPS driver.
    • Dome: If using a Dome driver, put its name here so that Dome Parking Policy can be applied.
  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Simulation: Enable to disable simulation mode for testing purposes.
  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Dome Parking Policy

    If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount before parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.

    • Ignore dome: Take no action when dome parks or unparks.
    • Dome locksPrevent the mount from unparking when dome is parked.
    • Dome parks: Park the mount if dome starts parking. This will disable the locking for dome parking, EVEN IF MOUNT PARKING FAILS.
    • Both: Dome locks & Dome parks policies are applied.
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in Scope Name property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Enable or Disable joystick support. An INDI Joystick driver must be running for this function to work. For more details, check the INDI Telescope Joystick tutorial.

Motion Control

Motion Control

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and guide controls are configured.

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Rate of manual motion control above when 1x equals sidereal rate. This feature is currently not supported in the firmware since the slew speed is fixed to 10800 arcsec per sec.
  • Acceleration: Acceleration rates per axis in arcseconds per seconds squared. The mount uses this value to accelerate from rest to the full slew speed (currently fixed at 10800 arcsecs per sec by the mount firmware).
  • Encoders: Displays the current Hour-Angle (HA) and Declination (DE) axis encoder values in degrees. You can manually command the mount to move to a specific encoder position by changing this property.
  • Guide N/S/W/E: Guiding pulses durations in milliseconds. This property is meant for guider application (e.g. PHD2) and not intended to be used directly.

Site Management

Time, Locaiton, and Park settings are configured in the Site Management tab.

 Site Management

  • UTC: UTC time and offsets must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The UTC offset is in hours. East is positive and west is negative.
  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.
  • Parking: By default, the parking position is when the OTA to be looking directly at the celestial pole. To restore parking position to the default value, please Default under Park option. You can set a custom parking position using two methods. The mount must be unparked before you can set a new position:
    • Enter the desired HA & DE encoder values for the custom parking position, then press Set and then press Write Data to save the new parking position.
    • Slew the mount to the desired parking position, then press Current to sync the encoders position to this value, and then Write Data to save.

You can park the telescope by clicking on Park. If the telescope is already parked, click the park button to unpark it. You cannot perform any motion unless the telescope is first unparked!

If you are using KStars as your INDI client, you can click on any object or location on the Sky Map and then set it as the desired parking position as illustrated below:

Site Management

Alignment

The mount model utilized by the driver is managed by the properties in the alignment tab. Each time a sync point is added (by Plate solving software for example), the Current Set size is incremented by one. To save the list to disk so that it can be utilized in a future session, click on the Action to take dropdown and select Save the alignment database to local storage then press OK next to Execute Action property. For best results, change the Math Plugins to use the Nearest Math Plugin since it is very simple and reliable when used with plate-sovling software. For more complicated modelling, select SVG Math Plugin

Alignment

Issues

Thanks to Mr. Sameer Bharadwaj and Mr. Abdulrahman R. for their extensive testing on the driver during development process, their help was invaluable. There are no known issues for this driver. If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's Github issues page

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knro Thu, 23 Sep 2021 21:32:03 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/astrotrac-360.html
SkyWatcher Alt/Az https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skywatcher/skywatcher-alt-az-dobsonian.html

Installation:

INDI Skywatcher Alt-Az Driver is installed by default with INDI. To install under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indi-bin

 Features

The driver uses SkyWatcher protocol to directly control Alt-Az mounts without the need for the Synscan hand controller. In addition to general Park/Unpark and GOTO (SLEW) capability, it supports SYNC, TRACK and pulse guiding. It is designed to work with KStars, Ekos and other INDI-compatible planetarium automation platforms.

 INDI Main Contro Panel

Current features are:

  • GoTo Coordinates
  • Slew & Sync
  • Slew Rates
  • Sidereal Tracking rate
  • Full joystick support
  • Pulse Guiding

Mount should be in the Park Position (scope horizontal, pointing North) prior to driver connection for best results.

 

Connectivity

There are basically two way to connect your mount to your computer (PC or Raspberry PI/StellarMate):  Direct serial cable or Network. In either case you are directly connecting to the motor controller of the mount and the driver does not utilize the services of the Synscan Hand Controller or Synscan app.

1. USB

 SkyWatcherAltAzMount INDI Connection USB Panel

Connect a USB cable from the mount directly to a USB port on your PC or StellarMate. Depending on your specific mount, you might need to change the default baudrate of 9600 to whichever rate supported by your mount. You can select the USB serial port from the available port detected on the system.

For AZ-GTi mounts in Alt-Az configuration, connect from the RJ12 port to PC/StellarMate using a proper cable.

51eoYbLUcnL. AC SX679

2. Network (WiFi)

SkyWatcherAltAzMount indi ConnectionTCP2

Network WiFi connectivity to current SkyWatcher models is available via a built-in WiFi device. Previous models require a WiFi dongle attached to the motor controller. Both WiFi devices operate in much the same way.

The default mode for both the internal and dongle WiFi is HOTSPOT/ADHOC mode and the default address of the motor controller is 192.168.4.1 and the default password is not set. This is important to note, as if no device connects to the motor controller within a given time period (15 minutes to 24 hours, depending on firmware version), the HOTSPOT resets to this default configuration. The default configuration uses DHCP to assign an address when connecting from your computer.  The AZ-GTi driver shows a typical network diagram image here.

SkyWatcherAltAzMount indi ConnectionTCP

It is important to note the router in the SkyWatcher HOTSPOT is not robust, and while it will suffice for telescope control and visual astronomy, connecting multiple devices to the internal HOTSPOT router and porting images through it between devices may be beyond its capability. In this case, it may be advantageous to switch to Station Mode and configuring the Wifi as a client to connect to your local WiFi network. With the current model motor controllers that have internal WiFi, this is done using a computer, phone or tablet running the Synscan program or app, and as private netorks vary, is beyond the scope of this tutorial. The image above, however, shows a typical configuration for a home network (192.168.5.0/24) where the telescope address has been set via DCHP to permanently be 192.168.5.111. It is recommended that a static IP be used if setting up on a home WiFi network.

Note that the protocol is UDP and will not work if set to TCP. Presently, all SkyWatcher WiFi motor controllers communicate via UDP.

3. First Time Connecting

SkyWatcherAltAzMount INDI Options Panel

Enter the appropriate information into the Connection tab when running the driver for the first time, then select the Options tab and press SAVE to save the settings. You may also wish to enter telescope or accessory information in this tab. KStars, Ekos and other programs may make use of these data if provided. If you change settings in future, always remember to return to the Options tab to save your settings again.

 Operation

Main Control

 SkyWatcherAltAzMount indi Main Control

It is most practical to use Ekos or some other INDI client to control the mount, however some basic functions may be performed in the INDI Control Panel.  The Main Control tab shows the current connection and park status.  The "Connection" indicator must be green and the mount listed as UnParked for the driver to execute any motion commands.  While it may not seem necessary for parking/unparking to be implemented on what is typically a portable mount, parking the scope at the end of the session and unparking it at the beginning of a session may improve initial slew accuracy and may be required for more permanent installations in a domed or automated roof environment. UnPark does not move the mount, however Park will slew the mount and return it to its parked position (horizontal, pointing North).

The "On Set" buttons govern the action to be taken after new "Eq. Coordinates" are set.  They may be use to Slew or Sync the mount or simply begin tracking once the "Set" butten is pressed.

"Abort Motion" will command the mount motor system to stop all motion.  It may be used to avoid a scope collision with an unexpected obstacle or to halt a slew started by a client or the Motion Control tab.

Alignment

The Alignment tab in the default configuration show show one green indicator at startup for "Alignment Subsystem Active."  Other settings on this tab are for specialty applications and advanced use beyond the scope of this tutorial.  No adjustment for these parameters is required for general use.

Motion Control

SkyWatcherAltAzMount INDI Motion Control

The "Motion N/S,"  (North/South) and "Motion W/E" "West/East" may be used to start the scope slewing at the listed "Slew Rate."  If you are not using a Joystick or INDI Client with a mount simulator, it may be necessary to press the "Abort Motion" Abort button on the Main Control tab to stop the slew.  It is not intended for fine adjustments.

The "Slew Rate" may be adjusted at any time.  It is suggested that a low to moderate slew rate be selected initially, whether in the Motion Control tab or an INDI compatible Client.  Remember to return to the Options tab and save your settings once you have found a setting you like.

"Slew Mode" defaults to "Normal."  "Silent" mode is not as loud, but may not allow some of the faster "Slew Rates" on some mounts.

Mounts without SoftPEC may enable "SoftPEC Mode" for tracking.  Otherwise, the default setting is "Disabled."  It is best to begin with the default SoftPEC value if you Enable SoftPEC.

"Guide Rates" are set to a default of 120.000 arcsec/second for both RA and DEC.  Most guiding software will override these values and the current recommendation is to leave them at the default value.

Site Management

 SkyWatcherAltAzMount INDI Site Management Tab

It is critical that the information in the Site Management tab is accurate.  KStars-Ekos, GPS add-on devices and some clients will populate these fields if properly configured, however some clients will not.  If the startup time/date and Lat/Lon values are incorrect or missing, accurate pointing will not be possible.

Detailed Mount Information

SkyWatcherAltAzMount INDI Detailed Mount Information Tab

The Detailed Mount Information tab is primarily detail for troubleshooting.  It shows real-time process during mount operations.  The data elements displayed are polled from the mount by the indi driver upon startup.

Guide

SkyWatcherAltAzMount indi Guide

The Guide tab is for entries of minor adjustments to the pulse guiding system.  In most cases, these adjustments are best made within the guiding software.  Use with care.

 

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JonCarleton Tue, 29 Dec 2020 15:02:45 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skywatcher/skywatcher-alt-az-dobsonian.html
Celestron AUX https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/celestron/celestron-aux-driver.html

Installation

INDI Celestron AUX Driver is released with INDI Library >= v1.9.4 To Install the driver under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indi-celestronaux

BETA driver. Do not use unattended. For Alt-Az mode, you must adjust the PID parameters to achieve good tracking. This driver was not fully tested with an Equatorial mount. Use caution.

Supported Mounts

The driver supports control of all Celestron Alt-Az and Equatorial mounts that are controlled via the following methods:

  1. WiFi
  2. AUX Port
  3. PC Port (found on CPC and CGX mounts).

Aliases

While the primary driver name is Celestron AUX, several aliases or labels were created to faciliate the driver selection for user.

aliases

For example, selecting Evolution WiFi would start the driver in Alt-Az mode with the Network Type set to Network, while selecting Evolution WiFi Wedge would start the driver in Equatorial mode.

Features

The Celestron AUX driver provides GOTO and sky alignment functions of Celestron mounts which support AUX protocol and is designed to work over all available communication channels. It works directly with mount and axis controllers, without any help from the Hand Controller.

In fact the HC may interfere with the driver operation and is better left disconnected from the mount or not used. The only potential function left to the HC is working as a serial interface to the mount. In principle, it should support any Celestron mount using AUX command set (most of them) with SkyFi wireless module, additional or build-in or over any type of serial connection (PC/AUX port with proper level converter or Hand Controller serial port). The driver was tested with NexStar Evolution (Alt/Az) and CPC (EQ) mounts.

The driver supports the following features:

  • GOTO
  • Sync
  • Custom Parking
  • Track Modes (Sideral, Solar, Lunar) for Equatorial Mounts only
  • Track Rates
  • Slew Speeds
  • Slew Directional Control
  • Coord Wrap Management.
  • Active PID Tracking for Alt-Az mounts.
  • Guiding

Connectivity

USB/Serial

Celestron AUX driver can use any of the serial connections offered by Celestron scopes. The serial connections are listed below with their main characteristics.

connection

  1. HC: serial cable connected to hand controller serial port (less recent models).
    • 4 pins connector (RJ11).
    • 3 wires used: GND, TX, RX.
    • RS-232 serial voltage levels (+5V,-5V).
    • 9600 baud transmission speed.
    • No transmission flow handshake, no echo.
    • Command protocol: pass through (mostly AUX protocol encapsulated inside HC messages).
  2. HC: USB cable connected to hand controller USB port (most recent models) (alpha testing).
    • mini USB connector.
    • Command protocol: pass through (mostly AUX protocol encapsulated inside HC messages).
  3. AUX: serial cable connected to Celestron AUX port.
    • 6 pins connector (RJ12)
    • 5 wires used: GND, TX, RX, CTS, RTS
    • TTL serial voltage levels (+5V, 0V)
    • 19200 baud transmission speed
    • Half duplex CTS/RTS handshake with echo
    • Command protocol: AUX
  4. PC: serial cable connected to Celestron PC port
    • 8 pins connector (RJ45)
    • 5 wires used: GND, TX, RX, CTS, RTS
    • RS-232 serial voltage levels (+5V,-5V)
    • 19200 baud transmission speed
    • Half duplex CTS/RTS handshake with echo
    • Command protocol: AUX
  5. USB: USB cable connected to an USB port of telescope mount (alpha testing).
    • USB connector type A.
    • Command protocol: AUX.

As modern computers generally no longer have serial interfaces, a convenient way to make a serial connection to a Celestron scope is to use an USB to serial converter with the proper cable as mentioned in the previous list.

Beware of cheapest USB/serial converters, they have serial lines with TTL levels (+5V,0V). So, they work with AUX port only. Connections to HC and PC ports require a true USB/RS-232 serial converter with symmetric voltage levels (+5V,-5V).

On the other hand old standard RS-232 is symmetric +/-12V signalling should NEVER be connected to the AUX port. Nothing should be connected there without proper level converter. The AUX port is non-standard and connected directly to the bus between all motor controllers and main board. There is an oportunity to burn all scope electronics by connecting wrong signals there.

Network connection

This type of connection can be used with scopes with WiFi interface like NexStar Evolution or any other Celestron scope equipped with SkyFi Wi-Fi adapter. It is the driver's default connection mode, and by default set the Celestron WiFi Hotspot settings (out of the box it is IP:1.2.3.4, Port:2000).  If the mount WiFi is configured to join to your own WiFi network (Station mode) then you need to set the IP address there or enable LAN Search so that it automatically searching the subnet.

First time connection

Before establishing connection to the mount, you must set the following properties in the driver:

  • Mount Type: Equatorial Or Alt-Az
  • Connection Mode: Network or Serial
  • Port Type: If the connection is Serial, then which port to use? AUX/PC or USB/HC?
  • Network Information: If connection mode is Network, then you can set the mount IP address and port. By default, it's set 1.2.3.4 which is the Celestron WiFi Hotspot IP address.

Main Control Panel

From the main control panel, you can issue GOTOs, syncs, and park/unpark the mount. Depending on the mount model, it's possible to home the mount in Azimuth/Right Acension and possibly Altitude/Declination axis. Horizontal GOTOs are also supported. Parking position can be set in the Site Management tab.

Alignment

The Celestron AUX driver embeds the Alignment Subsystem module that comes with the INDI library. This module allows to align the pointing coordinates of the telescope with respect to the celestial frame. After module alignment, the telescope pointing coordinates read from the driver will coincide with the direction actually pointed in the sky, less than a small error. This operation is generally performed at each power up or when the telescope mount is moved or changed for some reason.

alignment

This alignment operation is not a substitute for a correct mount leveling and orientation to north meridian for altazimuth mounts or to north/south celestial pole for equatorial mounts. Indeed, they are a prerequisite. By default, the driver uses Nearest Alignment Plugin.

There is no need to directly interaction with the Alignment tab in the driver as it is managed by the client (e.g. Ekos).

Motion Control

motioncontrol

Move the mount using the selected slew rate in the N/S and W/E directions.

Site Management

sitemanagement

The mount time and location are set in this tab. It is usually automatically handled by your client, so no need to set it directly. You can move your mount to your desired park position and then click Current followed by Write Data. Then go back to the Main Control Panel and click Park. Once parked, the tracking is turned off and you can safely turn off power. If no custom parking is set, the mount would park to its home position.

Coord Wrap

To protect against cables snapping, enable the Cord Wrap protection. Select where you want the NCL (No Cross Line) to be.

coordwrap

Mount Info

Displays the Mount firmware and ecnoder positions and angles. You can set the absolute position of the encoder if desired. When using an Alt-Az mount, then the Axis1 & 2 PID (Propptional-Integral-Dervivate) controller is used to keep the mount tracking the target. After each second, the target horizontal coordinates (which are time dependent) are calculated from the target equatorial coordinates. This result is compared to the mount's current horizontal position, and the difference is then sent to the mount to compensate.

If you find that your mount is not tracking your target accurately, it's recommended to start by adjusting the Propotional gain for each axis first. This usually have the biggest impact on the result with no further adjustments required. By default, the integral and derivative terms are set to zero. It's not recommended to set derivative gain unless you know what you're doing. Integral gain can be adjusted to elliminate steady-state error but can result in any over-shoot as well.

PID control is NOT used for Equatorial mounts, it is exclusive to Alt-Az mount tracking.

mountinfo

Issues

There are no known basic functional bugs in this driver, but there are multiple missing features and it is still not as stable as it should. If you found a bug, please report it in (preferably) github issue tracker for the driver or a main INDI project issue tracker. (You can log in with a variety of existing accounts, including Google, Yahoo and OpenID.)

 

]]>
Jochym Thu, 30 Apr 2020 09:54:13 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/celestron/celestron-aux-driver.html
TeenAstro Mount https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/teenastro-mount.html

Installation

The TeenAstro INDI Driver is released with INDI library. It is shipped with INDI Library v1.8.3+. To Install the driver under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indi-bin

Features

The INDI TeenAstro driver interacts with a mount controller using the LX200 protocol through a serial link.

The TeenAstro mount controller can be used with many different mounts that use stepper motors, including SkyWatcher, Astro-Physics and Takahashi.

Main Control

Current features are:

  • GOTO, Sync
  • Slew Speeds: 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 4x, 16x, 32x, 64x, 0.5 Max, Max
  • Track Rates: Sideral, Lunar, Solar. Track Modes: Equatorial
  • Tracking can be disabled
  • Meridian Flip is not supported
  • One custom parking positions
  • Pulse-guiding is supported
  • Guide Rates: 0.25x, 0.5x, 1x
  • ST4 Guiding is supported

The driver has its own internal model and does not use the INDI Alignment subsystem to build a model for the sky.

It needs to be aligned before it can be used with the driver. The default home position is with the telescope pointing towards the pole

Connectivity

1. USB

The controller connects via USB with a standard A-B cable.

2. Network

It supports networked connections over TCP/IP, through Wifi only (with a firmware version 1.1 or above)

The IP address is determined by the network (or self-assigned in case of stand-alone operation). The port number is 9999. To connect the mount, select the option "One To One" in the hand controller Wifi menu

3. Bluetooth

TeenAstro does not support Bluetooth.

4. First Time Connection

Connection

Before starting the driver, power the mount and make sure it is looking at the celestial pole with the weights down.

When running the driver for the first time, go to the Connection tab and select the port to connect to. You can also try connecting directly and the driver shall automatically scan the system for candidate ports. You can select Ethernet mode and enter the IP address and port for TeenAstro. After making changes in the Connections tab, go to Options tab and save the settings.

Operation

Main Control

The main control tab is where the primary control of TeenAstro takes place. To track an object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press Set. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to Sidereal tracking. Slew mode is different from track mode in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete. To sync, the mount must be already tracking. First change mode to Sync, then enter the desired coordinates then press Set. Users will seldom use this interface directly since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and sync the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.

3 tracking modes are supported: Sidereal, Lunar, and Solar. Tracking can be engaged and disengaged by toggling the Tracking property.

Options

 Under the options tab, you can configure many parameters before and after you connect to the mount.

  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Simulation: Enable to disable simulation mode for testing purposes.
  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Dome Parking Policy

    Dome is not supported at this time.


    Options
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in Scope Name property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Joystick is not supported.

Motion Control

Motion Control

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and guide controls are configured.

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Rate of manual motion control above where 1x equals one sidereal rate.
  • Guide N/S/W/E: Guiding pulses durations in milliseconds. This property is meant for guider application (e.g. PHD2) and not intended to be used directly.
  • Guiding Rate: Guiding Rate for RA & DE. 0.3 means the mount shall move at 30% of the sidereal rate when the pulse is active. The sideral rate is ~15.04 arcseconds per second. So at 0.3x, the mount shall move 0.3*15.04 = 4.5 arcsecond per second. When receiving a pulse for 1000ms, the total theoretical motion 4.5 arcseconds.
  • Track Default: Default tracking rate to be used on startup.
  • ST4 N/S/W/E: If the mount is receiving guiding pulses via ST4, apply this rate.

The Slew Rate dropdown is used to control the manual speeds when using the NSWE controls either directly or via a joystick. To set the GOTO speeds (when mount moves from one target to another via a GOTO command), you need to set it via the hand controller Mount Menu.

Site Management

Time, Location, and Park settings are configured in the Site Management tab.

Site Management

  • UTC: UTC time and offsets must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The UTC offset is in hours. East is positive and west is negative.
  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.
  • Parking Position: Upon connection to the mount, Ekos loads these values into the mount's motor controller to initialize the (stepper) motor step values. The default values represent the home position where the mount points to the celestial pole - i.e. 0 deg RA, 90 deg DEC.
  • Parking: To set the parking position of the mount to the home position, click “Default”, then "Write Data " - this saves the home values as the parking values. To set the parking position of the mount to a custom position, slew the mount to the desired position and click “Current”, then "Write Data " - this saves the current motor step values as the parking values.
    • IMPORTANT: For the first time Ekos connects to the mount, or if for any reason the parking position has become incorrect. Make sure the mount is in the home position, power up the mount, connect Ekos and set the parking position to home by clicking “Default”, then "Write Data ".

Issues

There are no known bugs for this driver. If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's Github issues page

]]>
knro Thu, 16 Jan 2020 10:25:48 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/teenastro-mount.html
AOK Skywalker https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/aok-skywalker.html

Installation

The INDI AOK Skywalker driver is released as a 3rd party driver and requires INDI Library >= 1.8.2. To install the driver under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indi-aok

Features

The INDI AOK Skywalker driver interacts with the AOK Skywalker mount controller (DDM Skywalker) using the TCP/IP protocol over WiFi or a wired ethernet link.

The Herkules line of the AOK Skywalker mounts are produced by AOKSwiss & Magnetdrives AG. The equatorial models DDM Herkules V12, V24 and V48 are supported. The alt-azimuth mount Atlas should be handled as well.

Main Control

Current features are:

  • Sync & Goto
  • LX200 compatible slew rates (Guide, Centering, Find, Max)
  • Configureable slew speed
  • Sidereal and solar trackrates
  • Tracking On/Off switch
  • Mount Park/Unpark switch
  • Pulse-guiding (projected)
  • ST4 Guiding
  • Mount Locked/Unlocked switch
  • Indication of pierside
  • The driver does not implement an internal alignment model, as it uses the builtin pointing model of the controller (DDM Skywalker).
  • It also employes the builtin automatic meridian flip of the DDM Skywalker, which heavily relies on setting the correct location data! (see Connectivity, 3. First Time Connection)
  • The parking position can be set individually through the webserver. (see Connectivity, 2. Web Server)

Connectivity

The mount is operated via the DDM Skywalker by means of a WLAN or a wired connection over TCP/IP.

1. Control Server

The default IP address:port is [192.168.1.9:5004]. (Follow the information in the operation manual of the DDM Skywalker, if you want to change adress or port.)

2. Web Server

In addition to the control port, the DDM Skywalker features a website at the address [192.168.1.9:80], that gives supplemental controls and informations about the status of the controller. (Be sure to have a working internet connection, as the DDM Skywalker is loading the sitemask from the web!)

3. First Time Connection

Before starting the driver, power the mount. The drives of the mount will make a couple of minor movements about both axis for calibration. Wait until the mount is steady again.

Connection

When running the driver for the first time, go to the Connection tab, select [Ethernet] and enter the IP address and port for the controller . After having set the changes in the Connections tab, go to Options tab and save the settings. Now you should be able to establish a connection with the DDM Skywalker in the Main Control tab.

Operation

Main Control

The Main Control tab is where the primary control of the AOK Skywalker takes place. After a successful connection the mount will be automatically unparked. Align the telescope with a known stellar object and do a "sync". This way Mountlock and Tracking will be automatically engaged. To track another object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press [Set]. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to [Sidereal tracking]. [Slew mode] is different from [track mode] in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete.
Users will seldom use this interface directly however, since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and "sync" the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.

At present two tracking modes are supported: Sidereal and Solar. Tracking can be engaged and disengaged by toggling the Tracking switch.

Options

 Under the options tab, you can configure many parameters before and after you connect to the mount.

Options

  • Snoop Devices: Indicate which devices the DDM Skywalker driver should communicate with:
    • GPS: If using a GPS driver (e.g. INDI GPSD) then enter its name here. The DDM Skywalker shall sync its time and location settings from the GPS driver.
    • Dome: If using a Dome driver, put its name here so that Dome Parking Policy can be applied.
  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Simulation: You can connect to the DDM Skywalker without having connected the mount and test all commands. So there is no need to toggle this switch!
  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Dome Parking Policy: If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount  before  parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.
    • Ignore dome: Take no action when dome parks or unparks.
    • Dome locksPrevent the mount from unparking when dome is parked.
    • Dome parks: Park the mount if dome starts parking. This will disable the locking for dome parking, EVEN IF MOUNT PARKING FAILS.
    • Both: Dome locks & Dome parks policies are applied.
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in [Scope Name] property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Enable or Disable joystick support. An INDI Joystick driver must be running for this function to work. For more details, check the INDI Telescope Joystick tutorial.

Motion Control

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and slew controls are configured.

Motion Control

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Guide, Centering, Find and Max.
  • Slew Target displays the coordinates of the current land target.

Site Management

Time and Location settings are configured in the Site Management tab. Please note that proper data is crucial for the correct working of the mount, especially the automatic flips. The DDM Skywalker itself does not retain time and location: So after having set the changes, go to Options tab and save the settings. This way the controller is receiving the correct data on startup of the driver. Most applications, like KStars, can update the driver with location and time (see INDI settings in KStars).

Site Management

  • UTC Time/UTC Offset: UTC Time and UTC offset must be set for proper operation of the mount. The UTC offset is in hours. East is positive and west is negative.
  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the mount. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.
  • Elevation: Elevation is entered only for informational purpose. It will not be included in any calculations.

Information

On successful connection the DDM Skywalker firmware version is read out.

Information

Issues

There are no known bugs for this driver. If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's Github issues page

]]>
knro Sun, 13 Oct 2019 09:44:00 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/aok-skywalker.html
Omegon EQ500-X Equatorial Mount https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/omegon/omegon-eq500-x-equatorial-mount.html

Installation

The Omegon EQ500-X Equatorial Mount driver is included with libindi >= 1.7.8. Install with:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install libindi1

Features

The Omegon EQ500-X Equatorial Mount driver supports:

  • 4 Slew Rates (max, find, center and guide)
  • Single sidereal tracking rate
  • Goto coordinates (via software adjustment)
  • Sync coordinates
  • Abort movement
  • Location configuration (used for initial sync)
  • Pier side
  • Simulation mode
  • Timed pulse guiding

Operation

  • Install the Omegon EQ500-X Equatorial Mount with its pad connected.
  • Orient the right ascension axis towards the pole using either visual alignment or an external alignment tool.
  • Rotate the right ascension axis so that the telescope is on top, and declination axis so that the telescope looks at the pole.
  • Lock axes firmly.
  • Power on the mount using the side button on the pad to select your hemisphere.
  • Plug the USB cable from the pad to the host computer.
  • By default, the pad is recognized as a serial adapter on port /dev/ttyUSB0 (9600 bauds, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit).
  • Execute indiserver with driver `indi_eq500x_telescope` using the method of your choice.
  • When you connect the driver after powering up the mount, the initial position is synced to the local sidereal time of the location your client.

Warning: when moving manually, there is no safety preventing the mount from rotating in a dangerous position in which the optical tube may hit the mount support.

It is mandatory that both the geographical location and host time and date be properly configured for the driver to provide correct LST to the mount. An incorrect location and/or date and time will cause the driver to require a meridian flip at an unexpected right ascension, leading to a dangerous positioning of the optical tube.

1. Main Control tab

Manage the connection of your device using the "Connect" and "Disconnect" button.

You may change the local serial port used for the connection in the Connection tab (default is /dev/ttyUSB0).

You may enter go-to coordinates directly in the RA/DEC edit boxes. Use the "Abort" button to stop the mount from going to the target coordinates.

The mount will report pier side while moving.

2. Connection tab

You may find driver information in this tab.

If you know on which port the mount is plugged, you may enter the port path directly and disable auto search.

If you don't know on which port the mount is plugged, press "Scan Ports" and auto-search will attempt to read RA/DEC from each local port until successful.

3. Options tab

Unless you need a higher update rate while moving manually, leave the polling period to 1000ms (the Go-To feature will reset this period to 1000ms after moving or aborting).

When troubleshooting or reporting issues, you may enable debug mode and configure log level to "debug" in order to provide detailed logs to developers.

The driver also offers a mode that simulates the mount movement, that you can enable with the "Simulation" item before connecting the driver (in this mode the device is not used). This mode is used by unitary tests when developing.

Joystick mode allows you to control the movement of your mount with a Linux-compatible joystick connected to the same host.

4. Motion Control tab

Movement buttons "North", "South", "West" and "East" rotate the mount at the rate selected by the "Slew Rate" entry. Click to engage movement, click again to stop.

Warning: when moving manually, there is no safety preventing the mount from rotating in a dangerous position in which the optical tube may hit the mount support.

5. Site Management tab

If your client software will not, configure the geographical site in which the mount is set up. Save the configuration in the Options tab.

It is mandatory that both the geographical location and host time and date be properly configured for the driver to provide correct LST to the mount. An incorrect location and/or date and time will cause the driver to require a meridian flip at an unexpected right ascension, leading to a dangerous positioning of the optical tube.

6. Guide tab

You may enter timed pulse commands in this tab. This set of properties can be used by a guider such as KStars Ekos or PHD2 in an automated manner.

The mount does not support standard LX200 pulse commands.

Issues

  • To improve the precision of the goto feature, the driver provides software adjustment but the performance of the algorithm may suffer from high load on the host.
  • The mount does not offer pulse guiding through LX200 Mg commands, instead a software timed guide pulse is used.
  • Goto movements are expected to always go through the meridian opposite to the pole.
  • However, neither the mount nor the driver will prevent manual movement or tracking through the pole meridian.
  • The driver is unable to read the firmware version for compatibility verification.
]]>
TallFurryMan Tue, 07 May 2019 07:02:42 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/omegon/omegon-eq500-x-equatorial-mount.html
Vixen Starbook https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/vixen/vixen-starbook.html

Installation

INDI Vixen Starbook Driver is released as a 3rd party driver and requires INDI Library >= v1.7.4. To Install the driver under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/indinightly
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indi-starbook

This is article stub, and still needs update, for more actuall guide head to https://github.com/indilib/indi/tree/master/3rdparty/indi-starbook

Features

TODO

eqmod main

Current features are:

  • Goto/Slew

Connectivity

TODO

4. First Time Connection

eqmod connection

Before starting the driver, power the mount and make sure it is looking at the celestial pole with the weights down.

When running the driver for the first time, go to the Connection tab and select the port to connect to. You can also try connecting directly and the driver shall automatically scan the system for candidate ports. If Vixen Starbook is connected the network via a Serial-TCP (Ethernet or WiFi) adapter, then you can select Ethernet mode and enter the IP address and port for the adapter connected to the mount. After making changes in the Connections tab, go to Options tab and save the settings.

Operation

Once Vixen Starbook is online, it loads mount, alignment, parking, and horizontal limits settings if they exist. Its location defaults to the celestial pole unless a custom parking position is set previously.

Main Control

The main control tab is where the primary control of Vixen Starbook takes place. To track an object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press Set. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to Sidereal tracking. Slew mode is different from track mode in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete. To sync, the mount must be already tracking. First change mode to Sync, then enter the desired coordinates then press Set. Users will seldom use this interface directly since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and sync the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.

Four tracking modes are supported: Sidereal, Lunar, Solar, and Custom. When using Custom mode, the rates defined in Track Rates shall be used. Tracking can be enganged and disenganged by toggling the Tracking property.

Options

 Under the options tab, you can configure many parameters before and after you connect to the mount.

  • Snoop Devices: Indicate which devices Vixen Starbook should communicate with:
    • GPS: If using a GPS driver (e.g. INDI GPSD) then enter its name here. Vixen Starbook shall sync its time and location settings from the GPS driver.
    • Dome: If using a Dome driver, put its name here so that Dome Parking Policy can be applied.
  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Simulation: Enable to disable simulation mode for testing purposes.
  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Dome Parking Policy

    If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount before parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.

    • Ignore dome: Take no action when dome parks or unparks.
    • Dome locksPrevent the mount from unparking when dome is parked.
    • Dome parks: Park the mount if dome starts parking. This will disable the locking for dome parking, EVEN IF MOUNT PARKING FAILS.
    • Both: Dome locks & Dome parks policies are applied.

    eqmod options
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in Scope Name property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Enable or Disable joystick support. An INDI Joystick driver must be running for this function to work. For more details, check the INDI Telescope Joystick tutorial.
  • Backlash: Set RA & DEC backlash in microsteps.

Motion Control

eqmod motion

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and guide controls are configured.

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Rate of manual motion control above when 1x equals sidereal rate.
  • Guide N/S/W/E: Guiding pulses durations in milliseconds. This property is meant for guider application (e.g. PHD2) and not intended to be used directly.
  • Guiding Rate: Guiding Rate for RA & DE. 0.3 means the mount shall move at 30% of the sidereal rate when the pulse is active. The sideral rate is ~15.04 arcseconds per second. So at 0.3x, the mount shall move 0.3*15.04 = 4.5 arcsecond per second. When receving a pulse for 1000ms, the total theoritical motion 4.5 arcseconds.
  • Custom Speeds: Customs speeds in RA & DEC axis when performing slew motion.
  • Track Default: Default tracking rate to be used on startup.
  • ST4 N/S/W/E: If the mount is receiving guiding pulses via ST4, apply this rate.

Site Management

Time, Locaiton, and Park settings are configured in the Site Management tab.

eqmod site

  • UTC: UTC time and offsets must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The UTC offset is in hours. East is positive and west is negative.
  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.
  • Parking Position: Upon connection to the mount, Ekos loads these values into the mount's motor controller to initialize the (stepper) motor step values. The default values represent the home position where the mount points to the celestial pole - i.e. 0 deg RA, 90 deg DEC.
  • Parking: To set the parking position of the mount to the home position, click “Default”, then "Write Data" - this saves the home values as the parking values. To set the parking position of the mount to a custom position, slew the mount to the desired position and click “Current”, then "Write Data" - this saves the current motor step values as the parking values.
    • IMPORTANT: For the first time Ekos connects to the mount, or if for any reason the parking position has become incorrect. Make sure the mount is in the home position, power up the mount, connect Ekos and set the parking position to home by clicking “Default”, then "Write Data".

Firmware

Firmware tab displays information on the detected mount type and firmware version. Furthermore, the RA/DE steps, frequencies, and gear ratios are displayed.

eqmod firmware

Motor Status

The stepper motors positions and work periods are displayed in addition to the status of each motor. If the mount is equipment with auxiliary encoders, then their position shall be displayed

eqmod motor status

Alignment 

By default the alignment mode is set to N-Star, every time you perform a sync, a new sync point is added to the model. You need to save the alignment points file if you want the driver to utilize them on the next startup. You can perform all these operations in the Align tab. The Vixen Starbook driver is currently transition to the INDI Alignment Subsystem and this section shall be updated when the transition is over to avoid duplicate information.

Under Options, you can select to utilize INDI's Alignment Subsystem instead of Vixen Starbook's own alignment system. However, the Alignment Subsystem is currently not stable so it is recommended to use Vixen Starbook alignment system which is on by default.

PEC

PEC training works the same way as with the handcontroller. Guide on a star, engage PEC training and the firmware will wait for the mount pass the worm indexer and then records the resulting speeds in the EEPROM of the motor microcontroller. When it has finished (worm indexer) it toggles a status bit and you can see in the INDI Control panel the status of PEC training becoming green (whereas it remains busy/yellow while training).

PEC/PEC training is enabled in INDI Vixen Starbook for mounts which supports it, EQ8, AZEQ5/6, EQ6R too apparently. It is a motor controller firmware feature, the INDI driver just sends the corresponding commands to start/stop PEC/PEC training and do not then bother about it. Please note that the firmware PEC+guiding may not be a good idea as the firmware changes the motor speed unconditionnally, so some guide commands may be lost.

Horizon Limits

For horizon limit just slew to the points along the horizon you want to set and hit the Add current button. The order of points is significant as Horizon uses a linear approximation between them. When you have finished hit the Write File button (saved in ~/.indi/HorizonData.txt which you can manually edit also).

Issues

Issue

All issues should be listed here

. If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's Github issues page

]]>
knro Mon, 07 Jan 2019 13:49:37 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/vixen/vixen-starbook.html
Avalon https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/avalon.html

Installation

The INDI Avalon StarGO driver is released as a 3rd party driver and requires INDI Library >= v1.7.5. To install the driver under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indi-avalon

Features

This INDI driver interacts with the StarGO GoTo Control System from Avalon Instruments through a USB connection. It can directly drive Avalon mounts and other mounts that are controlled by StarGO.

Current features are:

  • Goto/Slew
  • Slewing speeds ...
  • Sidereal, lunar and solar trackrates
  • Configurable custom parking positions
  • Pulse-guiding
  • ST4 Guiding
  • Focussing

The StarGO device also contains support for up to two stepper motors like focusers. The implementation herefore is at a very early stage.

Connectivity

Currently, the INDI driver only supports connections to the StarGO Control System through a USB cable. Please connect the computer running the INDI driver via USB to the StarGO device of your mount.

Operation

Connecting the StarGO Device

In order to establish the connection to the StarGO device, switch to the Connection tab and select the appropriate USB connection:

avalon connection tab

Select the appropriate USB device where StarGO is connected to. In case the device is not visible, press Scan Ports. The Baud rate can be left untouched as long as Auto select is set to Enabled, which leads to a automatic detection of the right baud rate. Please leave the Connection mode to Serial, changing to Ethernet has no effect.

Then switch to the Main Control tab and press Connect:

2019 04 20 064454 972x775 scrot

Main Control

The main control tab is where the primary control takes place. As soon as Connect has been pressed, the entire set of option unfolds.

As you may know from the Windows/ASCOM client, you need to press Sync home before the mount reacts to slewing etc. The other controls on this tab are more or less straight forward:

  • Abort motion: stops the motion of the scope
  • Track mode: set to sideral (star tracking), solar (sun tracking), lunar (moon tracking) or none (no tracking at all)
  • Tracking: turn tracking on and off
  • Parking: slew to the (predefined) parking position and park the scope. Remember, that you need to unpark the scope before you can slew it somewhere
  • Pier side: read only information on which pier side the scope is currently placed
  • Use pulse guiding: in case that you want to guide through pulse guiding instead of ST4, turn this option on
  • Aux1 Focuser: Enable or disable a focuser connected on the AUX1 port of the StarGO device. Please set to disabled as long as no focuser is present.
  • Home position: sync the current position as the home position. At the same time, the pointing model is initialized
  • Goto home: slew to the home position defined above and turn off tracking
  • Set park: set the current scope position as park position

Alignment

Position the mount in its home position and press Sync Home on the Main Control tab. Now the tracking mode is enabled and the mount can be slewed to arbitrary positions. StarGO manages its own pointing model. Each time a Sync is called, StarGO adds a new entry in its pointing model.

The best results can be achieved, when plate solving is used for building up an appropriate pointing model.

Options

On the options tab, you can setup various debugging options and scope properties.

avalon options

Most of them are straight forward and general INDI functions. Maybe some need explanation:

  • Polling: here you define the frequency, how often the INDI client asks the INDI server for updates. 1sec is a typical value
  • Scope Properties: set here the right parameters of your main scope and the guiding scope. Hint: if you have problems with plate solving, check here, if the values are correct.

Motion Control

With this tab you can manually slew the mount in all directions at different slewing speeds.

avalon motion control

Site Management

On the Site Management tab you can configure the location of your scope. If you are using KStars, it is recommended to set it through the Geographic Location of KStars and configure KStars such that it updates time and site for INDI. 

avalon site management

Guiding

Don't change anything here unless you know what you are doing.

avalon guide

RA/DEC

This tab is dedicated to guiding options.

avalon ra dec

  • Autoguiding: set the guiding speeds. For Avalon mounts, please follow the recommendations of Avalon Instruments
  • ST4: enable or disable guiding through the ST4 port of your guiding camera. In case you set it to enabled, do not forget to connect your guiding camera with the ST4 port of the StarGO device
  • Meridian flip: set the behaviour of the next slew command. If set to auto, the mount executes a meridian flip automatically. In case of disabled, no meridan flip takes place. And inversly, for forced a meridian flip is executed although it was not necessary from the scope position. If you do not know what you are doing, please leave it on auto!

General Info

This tab displays the current firmware version.

avalon general info

AUX1 Focuser

Here you can control a focuser connected to the AUX 1 port of the StarGO device.

2019 04 20 064508 972x775 scrot

With this tab you can control a focuser connected to the AUX1 port of the StarGO device:

  • Direction: The direction in which the focuser moves when a relative position is set.
  • Speed: Speed of the focuser moves (not appropriately tested yet).
  • Timer: Update interval of the tab.
  • Absolute Postion: Move the focuser to an absolute position.
  • Relative Position: Move the focuser in or out by a given number of steps according to the direction selected above.
  • Abort: Stop the movement of the focuser.
  • Sync: Set the current focuser position to a defined value (e.g. set it to 0 if the focuser is entirely drawn in).
  • Direction: Here you can switch the directions if your focuser operates the other way round.

 

]]>
knro Wed, 02 Jan 2019 06:41:14 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/avalon.html
Astrophysics GTOCP2 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/astrophysics/astrophysics-gtocp2.html

Installation

Included with libindi v1.6+. For Ubuntu it is recommended to install the latest development version:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libindi

Features

This driver supports Astro-Physics mounts with GTOCP2 controller (Firmware version E or later) over a serial connection.

Current features of the driver:

  • Goto/Slew 
  • Sidereal, lunar, solar and custom track rates
  • PEM control (ON/OFF)
  • Custom parking positions
  • Pulse-guiding
  • ST4 Guiding
  • Full joystick support 

Operation

First Time

When using the driver for the first time, ensure to set the correct port under the Connections tab. The primary and secondary telescope (if exists) aperture and focal lengths must also be set in the Options tab. If you do not have a secondary telescope, just put the same numbers as the primary there and click Set.

connections

It is also necessary to set the geographic location and park position in the Site Management tab.

Do not try parking the mount until this position is defined!

Use a park azimuth of "0" and a park altitude equal to your latitude.

The "Default" button should pre-populate these fields with the proper values based on the geographic location you have specified.

Be sure to save these options using the "Save"  button on the Options tab or else the changes will be loss when the driver is closed.

Operation

Main Control 

main control panel

The main control tab is where the primary control takes place.

To track an object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press Set. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to Sidereal tracking. Slew mode is different from track mode in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete. To sync, the mount must be already tracking. First change mode to Sync, then enter the desired coordinates then press Set. Users will seldom use this interface directly since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and sync the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.

The Abort Motion button can be used to stop the mount at any time.

Four tracking modes are supported: Sidereal, Solar, Lunar, and Custom. When using Custom mode, the rates defined in Track Rates shall be used.

Tracking can be enganged and disenganged by toggling the Tracking property.

Mount parking and unparking is controlled by the Parking property.

The Use Pulse Cmd property can be enabled to guide the mount through the communications interface and eliminates the requirement of using an ST-4 cable to guide the mount.

The Firmware property shows the detected firmware version of the mount controller.

Options

astrophysics options

The Options tab is used to set debugging and other configuration options, as well as being able to load and save configurations.

  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Simulation: Enable to disable simulation mode for testing purposes.
  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Snoop Devices: Indicate which devices the driver should communicate with:
    • GPS: If using a GPS driver (e.g. INDI GPSD) then enter its name here. EQMod shall sync its time and location settings from the GPS driver.
    • Dome: If using a Dome driver, put its name here so that Dome Parking Policy can be applied.
  • Dome Parking Policy

    If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount before parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.

    • Ignore dome: Take no action when dome parks or unparks.
    • Dome locksPrevent the mount from unparking when dome is parked.
    • Dome parks: Park the mount if dome starts parking. This will disable the locking for dome parking, EVEN IF MOUNT PARKING FAILS.
    • Both: Dome locks & Dome parks policies are applied.
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in Scope Name property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Enable or Disable joystick support. An INDI Joystick driver must be running for this function to work. For more details, check the INDI Telescope Joystick tutorial.

Motion Control

astrophysics motion

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and guide controls are configured.

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Rate of manual motion control above when 1x equals sidereal rate.
  • PEC Playback: Controls whether PEC correction are enabled.
  • GOTO Rate: Rate of motion for GOTO operations.
  • Swap Buttons: Reverse direction mount moves.
  • Sync: Controls whether SYNC or RECAL is used for syncs.  The recommended setting is :CMR# to use RECAL!

Site Management

astrophysics site

Time, Location, and Park settings are configured in the Site Management tab.

  • UTC: UTC time and offsets must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The UTC offset is in hours. East is positive and west is negative.
  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.
  • Parking: By default, the parking position is when the OTA to be looking directly at the celestial pole. To restore parking position to the default value, please Default under Park option. You can set a custom parking position using two methods. The mount must be unparked before you can set a new position:
    • Enter the desired AZ & ALT values for the custom parking position, then press Set and then press Write Data to save the new parking position.
    • Slew the mount to the desired parking position, then press Current to sync the encoders position to this value, and then Write Data to save.

You can park the telescope by clicking on Park on the Main Control tab. If the telescope is already parked, click the park button to unpark it. You cannot perform any motion unless the telescope is first unparked!

Guide

astrophysics guide

 

Guide related option:

  • Guide N/S/W/E: Guiding pulses durations in milliseconds. This property is meant for guider application (e.g. PHD2) and not intended to be used directly.
  • Guide Rate: Guiding Rate for RA & DE. Example: 0.25 means the mount shall move at 25% of the sidereal rate when the pulse is active. The sideral rate is ~15.04 arcseconds per second. So at 0.25x, the mount shall move 0.25*15.04 = 3.76 arcsecond per second. When receving a pulse for 1000ms, the total theoritical motion 3.76 arcseconds.  The recommended value is 1.0x.

Issues

  • When you park the mount it is recommended to disconnect the driver from the mount and power the mount down as well before connecting again.

If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at GitHub.

]]>
knro Sat, 05 May 2018 12:21:09 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/astrophysics/astrophysics-gtocp2.html
Astrophysics Legacy https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/astrophysics/astrophysics-legacy.html

Installation

Included with libindi v1.6+. For Ubuntu it is recommended to install the latest development version:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libindi

Features

This driver supports older Astro-Physics mounts (GTOCP2 or before). It can work for later mount models, but for such models, it's better to use other drivers with more functionality.

Current features of the driver:

  • Goto/Slew 
  • Sidereal, lunar, solar and custom track rates
  • Custom parking positions
  • Pulse-guiding
  • Full joystick support 

Operation

First Time

When using the driver for the first time, ensure to set the correct port under the Connections tab. The primary and secondary telescope (if exists) aperture and focal lengths must also be set in the Options tab. If you do not have a secondary telescope, just put the same numbers as the primary there and click Set.

connections

It is also necessary to set the geographic location and park position in the Site Management tab.

Do not try parking the mount until this position is defined!

Use a park azimuth of "0" and a park altitude equal to your latitude.

The "Default" button should pre-populate these fields with the proper values based on the geographic location you have specified.

Be sure to save these options using the "Save"  button on the Options tab or else the changes will be loss when the driver is closed.

Initialization 

On connection, the mount must be initialized to set values for the date, time, location, etc.

There are two types of initialization:

  • COLD
  • WARM

When connected to the mount for the first time after powering on the mount use the COLD initialization option.

Use a WARM initialization if connecting to a mount which has already been initialized once using the COLD initialization and has NOT been powered down.

The mount will assume it is starting in the PARK3 park orientation - this is with the scope pointing at the pole and the counterweight straight down.

These are defined in this document from Astro-Physics: PARK POSITIONS

 You must put the scope in this position when connecting to the mount!

Operation

Main Control 

main control panel

The main control tab is where the primary control takes place.

To track an object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press Set. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to Sidereal tracking. Slew mode is different from track mode in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete. To sync, the mount must be already tracking. First change mode to Sync, then enter the desired coordinates then press Set. Users will seldom use this interface directly since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and sync the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.

The Abort Motion button can be used to stop the mount at any time.

Four tracking modes are supported: Sidereal, Solar, Lunar, and Custom. When using Custom mode, the rates defined in Track Rates shall be used.

Tracking can be enganged and disenganged by toggling the Tracking property.

Mount parking and unparking is controlled by the Parking property.

The Use Pulse Cmd property can be enabled to guide the mount through the communications interface and eliminates the requirement of using an ST-4 cable to guide the mount.

The Firmware property shows the detected firmware version of the mount controller.

Options

astrophysics options

The Options tab is used to set debugging and other configuration options, as well as being able to load and save configurations.

  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Simulation: Enable to disable simulation mode for testing purposes.
  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Snoop Devices: Indicate which devices the driver should communicate with:
    • GPS: If using a GPS driver (e.g. INDI GPSD) then enter its name here. EQMod shall sync its time and location settings from the GPS driver.
    • Dome: If using a Dome driver, put its name here so that Dome Parking Policy can be applied.
  • Dome Parking Policy

    If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount before parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.

    • Ignore dome: Take no action when dome parks or unparks.
    • Dome locksPrevent the mount from unparking when dome is parked.
    • Dome parks: Park the mount if dome starts parking. This will disable the locking for dome parking, EVEN IF MOUNT PARKING FAILS.
    • Both: Dome locks & Dome parks policies are applied.
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in Scope Name property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Enable or Disable joystick support. An INDI Joystick driver must be running for this function to work. For more details, check the INDI Telescope Joystick tutorial.

Motion Control

astrophysics motion

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and guide controls are configured.

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Rate of manual motion control above when 1x equals sidereal rate.
  • PEC Playback: Controls whether PEC correction are enabled.
  • GOTO Rate: Rate of motion for GOTO operations.
  • Swap Buttons: Reverse direction mount moves.
  • Sync: Controls whether SYNC or RECAL is used for syncs.  The recommended setting is :CMR# to use RECAL!

Site Management

astrophysics site

Time, Location, and Park settings are configured in the Site Management tab.

  • UTC: UTC time and offsets must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The UTC offset is in hours. East is positive and west is negative.
  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.
  • Parking: By default, the parking position is when the OTA to be looking directly at the celestial pole. To restore parking position to the default value, please Default under Park option. You can set a custom parking position using two methods. The mount must be unparked before you can set a new position:
    • Enter the desired AZ & ALT values for the custom parking position, then press Set and then press Write Data to save the new parking position.
    • Slew the mount to the desired parking position, then press Current to sync the encoders position to this value, and then Write Data to save.

You can park the telescope by clicking on Park on the Main Control tab. If the telescope is already parked, click the park button to unpark it. You cannot perform any motion unless the telescope is first unparked!

Guide

astrophysics guide

 

Guide related option:

  • Guide N/S/W/E: Guiding pulses durations in milliseconds. This property is meant for guider application (e.g. PHD2) and not intended to be used directly.
  • Guide Rate: Guiding Rate for RA & DE. Example: 0.25 means the mount shall move at 25% of the sidereal rate when the pulse is active. The sideral rate is ~15.04 arcseconds per second. So at 0.25x, the mount shall move 0.25*15.04 = 3.76 arcsecond per second. When receving a pulse for 1000ms, the total theoritical motion 3.76 arcseconds.  The recommended value is 1.0x.

Mount

astrophysics mount

Slew Accuracy: Since legacry driver cannot know from the controller when the slew operation completed successfully, the driver employs another approach to determine when the slew is complete. By default, the drivers calculates the difference between the current mount position versus the target position. When the difference is within the Slew Accuracy threshold (default 3 arcminutes), it considers the slew to be complete. It is recommended to leave the value as-is.

Issues

  • When you park the mount it is recommended to disconnect the driver from the mount and power the mount down as well before connecting again.

If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at GitHub.

]]>
knro Sat, 05 May 2018 12:21:09 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/astrophysics/astrophysics-legacy.html
CEM120 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/ioptron/cem120.html

Installation

INDI iOptron CEM120 Driver is released as a 3rd party driver and requires INDI Library >= v1.6.5. To Install the driver under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libindi1

Features

This INDI driver is not limited to CEM120 as it supports the following iOptron mounts:

  • CEM120-EC2 with firmware 20171001 and later
  • CEM120-EC with firmware 20171001 and later
  • CEM120 with firmware 20171001 and later
  • CEM60-EC with firmware 20171001 and later
  • CEM60 with firmware 20171001 and later
  • iEQ45 Pro (EQ and AA mode) with firmware 20171001 and later
  • iEQ30 Pro with firmware 20171001 and later
  • CEM25-EC with firmware 20171001 and later
  • CEM25(/P) with firmware 20171001 and later
  • SmartEQ Pro+ with firmware 20171001 and later
  • AZ Mount Pro with firmware 20171001 and later
  • Cube Pro with 8408 (EQ and AA mode) with firmware 20171001 and later
  • Cube II (EQ and AA mode) with firmware 20171001 and later

Current features are:

  • Goto/Slew at user-selectable rates.
  • Sidereal, lunar, solar, king, and custom track rates.
  • Configurable custom parking positions.
  • Normal Slews and Counterweight up slews.
  • Home search & gogo.
  • Pulse-guiding.
  • Full joystick support.

The mount must be aligned first before establishing connection with INDI. Further enhancement to the GOTO operation can be done by using an astrometry solver.

Connectivity

1. USB

To connect to iOptronV3 mount from a PC or a device like Raspberry PI, you need a USB to RS232 RJ9/DB9 adapters. You connect the USB to your computer or embedded device running INDI and then use the driver to control the mount.

The default baud rate is set to 9600. If the connection fails to communicate with your mount, make sure the baud rate is set to the value indicated in the hand-controller. Some users reported using baud rate of 230400 to successfully communication with CEM120.

2. Network

If iOptron is available over the network via RS232-to-Ethernet adapter or WiFi for example, you can Ethernet connection mode and enter the corresponding IP address and port where the remote server is located.

4. First Time Connection

connections

When running the driver for the first time, go to the Connection tab and select the port to connect to. You can also try connecting directly and the driver shall automatically scan the system for candidate ports. If CEM120 is connected the network via a Serial-TCP (Ethernet or WiFi) adapter, then you can select Ethernet mode and enter the IP address and port for the adapter connected to the mount. After making changes in the Connections tab, go to Options tab and save the settings.

Operation

Once CEM120/iOptronV3 is online, it loads mount settings if they exist. Its location defaults to the celestial pole unless a custom parking position is set previously.

Main Control

The main control tab is where the primary control of CEM120 takes place. To track an object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press Set. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to Sidereal tracking. Slew mode is different from track mode in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete. To sync, the mount must be already tracking. First change mode to Sync, then enter the desired coordinates then press Set. Users will seldom use this interface directly since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and sync the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.

main control

Five tracking modes are supported: Sidereal, Lunar, Solar, King, and Custom. When using Custom mode, the rates defined in Track Rates shall be used. Tracking can be enganged and disenganged by toggling the Tracking property.

You can search for home position, or set current position as the home position, or simply go to the home position. Please note that the home position is NOT the same as parking position. Only a subset of mount support parking & unparking operation as the mount internal alignment data is not lost when the mount is parked and the power is cycled.

Options

 Under the options tab, you can configure many parameters before and after you connect to the mount.

  • Snoop Devices: Indicate which devices CEM120 should communicate with:
    • GPS: If using a GPS driver (e.g. INDI GPSD) then enter its name here. CEM120 shall sync its time and location settings from the GPS driver.
    • Dome: If using a Dome driver, put its name here so that Dome Parking Policy can be applied.
  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Simulation: Enable to disable simulation mode for testing purposes.
  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Dome Parking Policy

    If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount before parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.

    • Ignore dome: Take no action when dome parks or unparks.
    • Dome locksPrevent the mount from unparking when dome is parked.
    • Dome parks: Park the mount if dome starts parking. This will disable the locking for dome parking, EVEN IF MOUNT PARKING FAILS.
    • Both: Dome locks & Dome parks policies are applied.

    options
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in Scope Name property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Enable or Disable joystick support. An INDI Joystick driver must be running for this function to work. For more details, check the INDI Telescope Joystick tutorial.
  • Backlash: Set RA & DEC backlash in microsteps.

Motion Control

motion control

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and guide controls are configured.

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Rate of manual motion control above when 1x equals sidereal rate.
  • Guide N/S/W/E: Guiding pulses durations in milliseconds. This property is meant for guider application (e.g. PHD2) and not intended to be used directly.
  • Guiding Rate: Guiding Rate for RA & DE. 0.3 means the mount shall move at 30% of the sidereal rate when the pulse is active. The sideral rate is ~15.04 arcseconds per second. So at 0.3x, the mount shall move 0.3*15.04 = 4.5 arcsecond per second. When receving a pulse for 1000ms, the total theoritical motion 4.5 arcseconds.
  • Slew Type: By default slew operation are done using the Normal position (i.e. counterweight are down), but you can change the behavior so that it can slew with the counterweight up position.

Caution: Changing slew type to counterweight up can cause damage to your equipment it not used carefully and with a specific goal in mind.

  • Counter weights: Indicates the current countweight status in the mount. Normal indicates that counterweights are currently down.

Site Management

Time, Locaiton, and Park settings are configured in the Site Management tab.

site management

  • UTC: UTC time and offsets must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The UTC offset is in hours. East is positive and west is negative.
  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.
  • Parking: By default, the parking position is when the OTA to be looking directly at the celestial pole. To restore parking position to the default value, please Default under Park option. You can set a custom parking position using two methods. The mount must be unparked before you can set a new position:
    • Enter the desired Azimuth & Altitude values for the custom parking position, then press Set and then press Write Data to save the new parking position.
    • In KStars, you can right-click on the desired position in the Sky map, and then from the mount menu, select Set As Parking Position.
  • Daylight Savings: You can change daylight savings. It is recommended to keep this value OFF all year around and just rely on the UTC value.

You can park the telescope by clicking on Park. If the telescope is already parked, click the park button to unpark it. You cannot perform any motion unless the telescope is first unparked!

Mount Info

Mount info tab displays information on the detected mount type and firmware version. Furthermore, GPS status, time source, and current hemisphere values are shown.

mount info

Issues

There are no known bugs for this driver. If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's Github issues page

]]>
knro Thu, 22 Mar 2018 09:22:58 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/ioptron/cem120.html
Bisque Paramount https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/bisque-paramount.html

Installation

INDI Paramount Driver is released with INDI Library >= v1.6.0 To Install the driver under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libindi

Features

This INDI paramount driver interacts with Paramount mounts via TheSkyX TCP Server either locally on the same computer or across a network connection. Bisque does not permit a direct control of the mount and so TheSkyX must be started and configured first. To connect to TSX, the TCP server needs to be enabled. In TSX go to Tools->TCP Server. A pop up window will open. Click the check box Listening For Connections. This option will stay enabled and persist across TSX restarts.

When running on the same computer as TSX, connect to the loopback address of your computer (127.0.0.1). If TSX is on a separate computer, obtain the IP address of the TSX server. The port should be 3040 by default.

Current features are:

  • Goto/Slew/Sync.
  • Park/Unpark with configurable custom parking positions.
  • Slew Rates adjustment
  • Jog Rates adjustment
  • Sidereal, lunar, solar and custom trackrates
  • Guide rate adjustment
  • Pulse-guiding.
  • Full joystick support
  • Ability to take advantage of TSX Tpoint pointing models for accurate pointing
  • Differential slews to target with the Alignment module in Ekos (identical to TSX Closed Loop Slew)

TSX Preferences

In TheSkyX preferences, make sure to turn off TCP Responses close socket.

theskyx config

Connectivity

When the INDI Paramount driver is used for the first time, you must set the TSX IP address and port. Go to Connection tab and see the values, then press set. Then go to Options tab and click Save next to Configuration property so that the IP & Port values are saved across sessions.

 paramount connection

Operation

Once Paramount is online, you can control it from your favorite client software just like any other INDI mount driver.

Main Control

The main control tab is where the primary control of Paramount takes place. To track an object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press Set. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to Sidereal tracking. Slew mode is different from track mode in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete. To sync, the mount must be already tracking. First change mode to Sync, then enter the desired coordinates then press Set. Users will seldom use this interface directly since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and sync the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.

paramount main

Four tracking modes are supported: Sidereal, Lunar, Solar, and Custom. When using Custom mode, the rates defined in Track Rates shall be used. Tracking can be enganged and disenganged by toggling the Tracking property.

Options

 Under the options tab, you can configure many parameters before and after you connect to the mount.

paramount options

  • Snoop Devices: Indicate which devices Paramount should communicate with:
    • GPS: If using a GPS driver (e.g. INDI GPSD) then enter its name here. EQMod shall sync its time and location settings from the GPS driver.
    • Dome: If using a Dome driver, put its name here so that Dome Parking Policy can be applied.
  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Simulation: Enable to disable simulation mode for testing purposes.
  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Dome Parking Policy

    If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount before parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.

    • Ignore dome: Take no action when dome parks or unparks.
    • Dome locksPrevent the mount from unparking when dome is parked.
    • Dome parks: Park the mount if dome starts parking. This will disable the locking for dome parking, EVEN IF MOUNT PARKING FAILS.
    • Both: Dome locks & Dome parks policies are applied.
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in Scope Name property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Enable or Disable joystick support. An INDI Joystick driver must be running for this function to work. For more details, check the INDI Telescope Joystick tutorial.

Motion Control

paramount motion

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and guide controls are configured.

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Rate of manual motion control above when 1x equals sidereal rate.
  • Jog Rate: Jogging rate of N/S/W/E motion in arcmins.
  • Guide N/S/W/E: Guiding pulses durations in milliseconds. This property is meant for guider application (e.g. PHD2) and not intended to be used directly.
  • Guiding Rate: Guiding Rate for RA & DE. 0.3 means the mount shall move at 30% of the sidereal rate when the pulse is active. The sideral rate is ~15.04 arcseconds per second. So at 0.3x, the mount shall move 0.3*15.04 = 4.5 arcsecond per second. When receving a pulse for 1000ms, the total theoritical motion 4.5 arcseconds.

Site Management

Time, Locaiton, and Park settings are configured in the Site Management tab.

 paramount site management

  • UTC: UTC time and offsets must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The UTC offset is in hours. East is positive and west is negative.
  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.
  • Parking: By default, the parking position is when the OTA to be looking directly at the celestial pole. To restore parking position to the default value, please Default under Park option. You can set a custom parking position using two methods. The mount must be unparked before you can set a new position:
    • Enter the desired RA & DE values for the custom parking position, then press Set and then press Write Data to save the new parking position.
    • Slew the mount to the desired parking position, then press Current to sync the encoders position to this value, and then Write Data to save.

You can park the telescope by clicking on Park. If the telescope is already parked, click the park button to unpark it. You cannot perform any motion unless the telescope is first unparked!

If you are using KStars as your INDI client, you can click on any object or location on the Sky Map and then set it as the desired parking position as illustrated below:

paramount set parking position

Alignment 

Most users of TSX use TPoint to build and maintain the mount model. When using Ekos Alignment Module to perform mount alignment, using the default Slew then Sync behavior might adversely influence the T-Point model. Therefore, it is recommended to turn on Differential Slewing. When differential slewing is used, no syncs are sent to Paramount. The different between actual vs. reported mount position is used to correct for the discrepency. Enable this option in Ekos Alignment Options.

differential slewing

Issues

There are no known bugs for this driver. If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's Github issues page

]]>
knro Fri, 26 Jan 2018 08:09:52 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/bisque-paramount.html
Explore Scientific PMC-Eight https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/explore-scientific-pmc-eight.html

Installation

Included with libindi v1.7+. For Ubuntu it is recommended to install the latest development version:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indi-bin

Features

Beta Note

This driver operates the following mounts:

  • Losmandy G11
  • Explore Scientific EXOS2
  • Explore Scientific iEXOS100

Be sure the correct mount type is selected when using the driver for the first time. The driver defauls to EXOS2.

Requirements

This driver supports both Ethernet and Serial connections.  However, a serial connection is recommended for stability. 

For mounts that require a Serial to USB FTDI adapter (typically used for the EXOS2 and G11), previous versions of this driver required you to reprogram the adapter as outlined in this post.  Reprogramming is no longer necessary.  However, there is still some benefit to using a reprogrammed cable (faster connection time, no need to reset upon reconnect).  Note that you will need to undo the reprogramming if you ever want to use the same cable for updating firmware, connecting to the mount with the ASCOM driver, or other purposes.

For older mount firmware, in order to make the mount controllable through USB/Serial, some commands need to be run in order to switch the internal state of the mount. The process is described in detail in this file Switching Between the WiFi Interface and the Serial Interfaceon the iEXOS 100™Mount Controller

First Time 

This driver supports Explore Scientific G11, EXOS2 and iEXOS 100 PMC-Eight mounts over a Serial or Ethernet connection.

Current features of the PMC-Eight driver:

  • Goto/Slew 
  • Sidereal, lunar, solar and custom track rates
  • Pulse-guiding
  • ST4 Guiding
  • Full joystick support

Operation

First Time 

When using the driver for the first time, ensure to set the telescope's aperture and focal length in the Options tab.

It is also necessary to set the geographic location and park position in the Site Management tab.

Do not try parking the mount until this position is defined!

Initialization 

The telescope must start in the park position - this is with the scope pointing towards the pole and the counterweight straight down.

Main Control 

PMC8 Main

The main control tab is where the primary control takes place.

To track an object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press Set. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to Sidereal tracking. Slew mode is different from track mode in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete. To sync, the mount must be already tracking. First change mode to Sync, then enter the desired coordinates then press Set. Users will seldom use this interface directly since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and sync the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.

The Abort Motion button can be used to stop the mount at any time.

Four tracking modes are supported: Sidereal, Solar, Lunar, and Custom. When using Custom mode, the rates defined in Track Rates shall be used.

Tracking can be enganged and disenganged by toggling the Tracking property.

Mount parking and unparking is controlled by the Parking property.

The Firmware property shows the detected firmware version of the mount controller.

Options

PMC8 Options

The Options tab is used to set debugging and other configuration options, as well as being able to load and save configurations.

  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Simulation: Enable to disable simulation mode for testing purposes.
  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Snoop Devices: Indicate which devices the driver should communicate with:
    • GPS: If using a GPS driver (e.g. INDI GPSD) then enter its name here. EQMod shall sync its time and location settings from the GPS driver.
    • Dome: If using a Dome driver, put its name here so that Dome Parking Policy can be applied.
  • Dome Parking Policy

    If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount before parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.

    • Ignore dome: Take no action when dome parks or unparks.
    • Dome locksPrevent the mount from unparking when dome is parked.
    • Dome parks: Park the mount if dome starts parking. This will disable the locking for dome parking, EVEN IF MOUNT PARKING FAILS.
    • Both: Dome locks & Dome parks policies are applied.
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in Scope Name property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Enable or Disable joystick support. An INDI Joystick driver must be running for this function to work. For more details, check the INDI Telescope Joystick tutorial.

Motion Control

PMC8 Motion

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and guide controls are configured.

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Rate of manual motion control above when 1x equals sidereal rate.

Site Management

PMC8 Site

Location settings are configured in the Site Management tab.

  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.

Issues

  • The PMC-Eight driver is under development and needs testing - please be aware and always be observant of the mount when doing slews and parking.
  • When you park the mount it is recommended to disconnect the driver from the mount and power the mount down as well before connecting again.

If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at GitHub.

]]>
mikefulb Thu, 11 Jan 2018 20:42:45 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/explore-scientific-pmc-eight.html
GotoNova Upgrade Kit 8400 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/ioptron/ioptron-gotonova-upgrade-kit-8400.html

Installation

Included with libindi v1.4.2+. To install it under Ubuntu:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libindi1

Features

The driver supports the following Gotonova 8400 based controllers

Functions such as Track, Sync (Regular and CMR), and Park are supported.

Operation

On connection, the mount retrieves the controller time and location and updates the client accordingly.

When using the driver for the first time, ensure to set the telescope's aperture and focal length in the Options tab.

Issues

There are no known bugs for this driver. If you found a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at SourceForge. (You can log in with a variety of existing accounts, including Google, Yahoo and OpenID.)

]]> kbahey Tue, 04 Jul 2017 16:39:22 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/ioptron/ioptron-gotonova-upgrade-kit-8400.html SkySafari https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skysafari.html

Installation

INDI SkySafari Middleware Driver is included with INDI Library v1.5+. To Install the driver under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libindi1

Features

This driver is no longer needed when using SkySafari 7 or later. Connect to INDI server directly and do not add this driver to your equipment profile. Only use this driver when using SkySafari 6 or earilar

SkySafari is an astronomy application for Mac, iOS, and Android. Using either SkySafari Pro or Plus versions, you can control yours mounts. Since SkySafari currently does not support INDI mounts directly, a middleware drivers was develop to sit between SkySafari and INDI mount. It would allow you to use SkySafari to control and monitor your mount while at the same time use other INDI clients like Ekos to control it.

Current features are:

  • Goto
  • Align
  • Slew Speeds
  • Abort
  • Setting of Latitude/Longitude

Operation

Add the auxiliary SkySafari driver to your equipment profile. The driver is available under the auxiliary dropdown in Ekos.

SkySafari in Ekos

 

When you start the profile, you only need to update what mount the SkySafari drivers listens to. By default, it is set to Telescope Simulator. In the example below, since the mount we selected in our example Equipment Profile is EQMod, we change the mount to EQMod Mount.

EQMod Mount is just an example, select the mount driver suitable for your mount in the Equipment Profile.

You must do this before you click connect and establish the server. If you are already connected, click Disconnect, update the mount name, then click Connect again.

SkySafari Options

 

After you change the mount name to your active mount, please save the configuration by clicking Save so that your mount name is used the next time you connect to the driver.

In the unlikely event your INDI mount is NOT running on the same machine as the SkySafari INDI driver, you can change the INDI server hostname and port. Otherwise, leave this settings without any changes. By default, the SkySafari INDI server is started on port 9624. You can change this value if necessary but it is recommended to leave it as it

Now are you ready to connect, simply connect all your drivers and the SkySafari driver shall establish a server that your iOS/Android SkySafari app can connect to. When everything is OK, you shall see a message indicating that server is established:

SkySafari Server Online

 

Now open your SkySafari app and setup your mount. By default, the INDI SkySafari servers starts on port 9624. You need to know the IP address of the machine running INDI server, whether it's a desktop machine or embedded like Raspberry PI.

If you are connecting to StellarMate directly over HotSpot mode, enter 10.250.250.1 as the IP address in SkySafari. If StellarMate is joined to home WiFi network, enter stellarmate.local or StellarMate IP address directly.

Go the mount setup page in your App and set the IP address and port of the INDI SkySafari server:

SkySafari Mount Settings

 

You're set! Now simply connect to the telescope by clicking the telescope icon in SkySafari and it should connect in a few seconds if there are no issues in communication. Then you can control your mount as your would normally would under SkySafari while at the same being able to use it at the same time in any INDI compatible client.

SkySafari Mount Online

Issues

There are no known bugs for this driver. If you found a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at SourceForge. (You can log in with a variety of existing accounts, including Google, Yahoo and OpenID.)

]]>
knro Tue, 25 Apr 2017 19:27:34 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skysafari.html
Skywatcher Virtuoso (Alt/Az) https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skywatcher/skywatcher-virtuoso-alt-az.html

Installation

Included with libindi v1.4.1 or later. To install it under Ubuntu:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indi-full

Note: the old name of the driver is Skywatcher API Mount (executable: indi_skywatcherAPIMount).

Features

This driver supports Alt-Az mounts, but it was tested with Skywatcher Virtuoso.

Basic functions such as Track, Sync, and Park/Unpark are supported.

General Considerations

How to start with a Virtuoso mount:

1. Before connecting, the telescope or the DSLR on the Virtuoso mount should roughly point to Polaris (use the Sync method later to finetune the position). In practice, align the mount to true North-South and point a pin to the local latitude. The manual latitude setting of the mount with buttons 2+3 are NOT needed, INDI works independently from the manual mount settings.
2. The driver assumes by default that the telescope/DSLR is parked. Set the desired unpark position in the settings and click on Unpark button (Main Control tab) to move the telescope to a starting (unparked) position. The telescope motion control will be fully operational after unparking.
3. There are two slewing modes for the telescope: Silent (slower-and-silent) and Normal (quick-and-loud). It is configurable, the Silent mode is the default.

On connection, the mount sets the controller time and location.

Before syncing the mount make sure that the correct side of the pier is selected in the Main Control tab.

When using the driver for the first time, ensure to set the telescope's aperture and focal length in the Options tab. 

Software PEC

The Skywatcher Virtuoso mount does not have PEC implementation to learn and correct the mechanical errors, but the mount has a constant drift on the Alt axis downwards in tracking mode. This error makes impossible to keep the target in smaller FOVs (e.g. 40x30 arcmin with the shipped Heritage 114p telescope+CCD camera). The drift was checked and was found about 0.009 degree/minute. Support was added to the driver for this static compensation and it was named SoftPEC (software PEC). This feature is enabled by default for Virtuoso mounts in the driver.

How does it work?

- It should just work transparently out-of-the-box.

- The software PEC is enabled only if the mount is in Track mode. Over time, the mount driver correct the vertical drift with the SoftPEC value. The software correction does not change the position of the red mount cross-hairs in KStars during Track mode.

- When the Track mode is stopped, the SoftPEC is switched off and drift correction is reset. The red mount cross-hairs will jump position according to the real position of the axis encoders in KStars while the mount will not really move anywhere.

- If you have a small FOV (<= 1°-2°) because a DSLR or CCD camera is attached to a main telescope: the Virtuoso mount will be misaligned too much just by moving to a new not-near position. Do an "Capture & Align" with Sync "Solver Action" all the time before start a target tracking. When the target is locked well in the FOV by the beginning, the standard tracking with SoftPEC enabled in INDI will do a great job.

How to calculate custom SoftPEC value?

1. Start the mount according to the General Considerations.

2. Disable the SoftPEC in the mount configuration.

3. To calculate the vertical drift repeated alignment calculation will be done in the following steps.

4. Start track a target for alignment where the vertical Azimuth axis is mostly parallel with RA axis on the sky. You can check this in Stellarium, by switching on both with keys E and Z. Check where the vertical blue and orange lines are mosly parallel and start to track a target there. This is needed because the mount drifts on the vertical axis and we need to get this vertical (Alt) component during tracking for the SoftPEC.

5. Run an alignment on the Alignment tab with Capture & Solve. The first dRA and dDE will be quite high.

6. Wait until the mount syncs and goes back to the original target. Select Nothing for Solver Action and run a Capture & Solve again immediately. The dRA and dDE values should be minimal (a few arcsecs).

7. Wait 5 or 10 minutes and run a Capture & Solve again. Inspect the dRA and dDE values. dRA should be quite minimal, but dDE will be _negative_ and several arcmins (<= -5 arcmin). Get the absolute value of dDE, convert to degrees and divide by the minutes how much you waited to run "Capture & Solve". For example, if you waited 5 minutes and dDE was -03' arcmin: |-3'| = 3' -> 0.05°, 0.05° / 5 min => SoftPEC Value = 0.01.

8. Just set your custom SoftPEC Value in the mount driver configuration page, enable SoftPEC and test it. It can be finetuned if it was a bit over- or underestimated.

Issues

There are no known bugs for this driver. If you found a bug, please report it at INDI's github page:
https://github.com/indilib/indi

]]>
kecsap Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:25:41 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skywatcher/skywatcher-virtuoso-alt-az.html
Astrophysics Experimental https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/astrophysics/astrophysics-experimental.html

Installation

Included with libindi v1.7+. For Ubuntu it is recommended to install the latest development version:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libindi

Features

This driver supports Astro-Physics mounts over a serial connection with a firmware version of 'V' or newer.

Current features of the driver:

  • Goto/Slew 
  • Sidereal, lunar, solar and custom track rates
  • PEM control (ON/OFF)
  • Custom parking positions
  • Pulse-guiding
  • ST4 Guiding
  • Full joystick support
  • Meridian Delay (Experimental).

The experimental driver adds new capabilities only available using the latest mount firmware.   Since it is under development care must be taken when using it (not recommended to use the mount unattended, for example) but if you are interested in helping test this new code it would be a great help.

The experimental driver adds these features:

  • Use predefined park positions (PARK1/PARK2/PARK3/PARK4) for unpark and park operation.
  • Ability to unpark from 'Last park position'.
  • Improved mount initialization without user intervention.

Operation

PLEASE READ!

This driver is under development and as such should be considered in a BETA state.  This means you are testing the driver as much as using it.

That said it has been used for imaging and appears to operate correctly.  Use common sense when testing this driver - be near the mount whenever slewing or parking just in case!  

Any feedback on this driver is greatly desired and will help it progress more quickly from the developmental state.

First Time 

When using the driver for the first time, ensure to set the telescope's aperture and focal length in the Options tab.

It is also necessary to set the geographic location and park position in the Site Management tab.

Do not try parking the mount until this position is defined!

It is best to use one of the predefined park positions of PARK1/PARK2/PARK3/PARk4.

These are defined in this document from Astro-Physics: PARK POSITIONS

Also make sure the "Unpark From" option on the Main is set to "Last Parked".  This is the safest option since it will let the mount determine its position based on where it was last parked.  The only reason to use a different setting is if the mount seems to have lost sense of where it is and you want to start from a predefined position.

astrophysics last park

Be sure to save these options using the "Save"  button on the Options tab or else the changes will be loss when the driver is closed.

Initialization 

The mount will automatically be initialized by the driver - the user is not required to do anything extra.

Operation

Main Control 

astrophysics main

The main control tab is where the primary control takes place.

You will need to verify the Unpark From? property before connecting to the mount for the first time.  Normally the default of "Last Parked" will work and should usually not be changed.  If for some reason the mount seems to not slew properly it can help to put the mount in a known park position (PARK1/PARK2/PARK3/PARK4) and set the Unpark From? property to the corresponding park position and connect to the mount.  This will properly initialize the mount position.  Then you can set it back to "Last Parked".  Be sure to save the options!

WARNING - Leave this option at "Last Parked" unless you know what you are doing.  If you start the driver up and it is set to something besides "Last Parked" and the mount is not actually in the configured PARK position it will be very confused about where it is really pointing and lead to improper slews that may cause a pier strike!

To track an object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press Set. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to Sidereal tracking. Slew mode is different from track mode in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete. To sync, the mount must be already tracking. First change mode to Sync, then enter the desired coordinates then press Set. Users will seldom use this interface directly since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and sync the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.

The Abort Motion button can be used to stop the mount at any time.

Four tracking modes are supported: Sidereal, Solar, Lunar, and Custom. When using Custom mode, the rates defined in Track Rates shall be used.

Tracking can be enganged and disenganged by toggling the Tracking property.

Mount parking and unparking is controlled by the Parking property.

The Use Pulse Cmd property can be enabled to guide the mount through the communications interface and eliminates the requirement of using an ST-4 cable to guide the mount.

The Firmware property shows the detected firmware version of the mount controller.

Options

astrophysics options

The Options tab is used to set debugging and other configuration options, as well as being able to load and save configurations.

  • Debug: Enable debug logging where verbose messaged can be logged either directly in the client or a file. If Debug is enabled, advanced properties are created to select how to direct debug output. Watch a video on how to submit logs.
  • Simulation: Enable to disable simulation mode for testing purposes.
  • Configuration: Load or Save the driver settings to a file. Click default to restore default settings that were shipped with the driver.
  • Snoop Devices: Indicate which devices the driver should communicate with:
    • GPS: If using a GPS driver (e.g. INDI GPSD) then enter its name here. EQMod shall sync its time and location settings from the GPS driver.
    • Dome: If using a Dome driver, put its name here so that Dome Parking Policy can be applied.
  • Dome Parking Policy

    If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount before parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.

    • Ignore dome: Take no action when dome parks or unparks.
    • Dome locksPrevent the mount from unparking when dome is parked.
    • Dome parks: Park the mount if dome starts parking. This will disable the locking for dome parking, EVEN IF MOUNT PARKING FAILS.
    • Both: Dome locks & Dome parks policies are applied.
  • Scope Properties: Enter the Primary and Seconday scope information. Up to six different configurations for Primary and Secondary Guider telescopes can be saved separately, each with an optional unique label in Scope Name property.
  • Scope Config: Select the active scope configuration.
  • Joystick: Enable or Disable joystick support. An INDI Joystick driver must be running for this function to work. For more details, check the INDI Telescope Joystick tutorial.

Motion Control

astrophysics motion

Under motion control, manual motion controls along with speed and guide controls are configured.

  • Motion N/S/W/E: Directional manual motion control. Press the button to start the movement and release the button to stop.
  • Slew Rate: Rate of manual motion control above when 1x equals sidereal rate.
  • PEC Playback: Controls whether PEC correction are enabled.
  • GOTO Rate: Rate of motion for GOTO operations.
  • Swap Buttons: Reverse direction mount moves.
  • Sync: Controls whether SYNC or RECAL is used for syncs.  The recommended setting is :CMR# to use RECAL!

Site Management

astrophysics site

Time, Location, and Park settings are configured in the Site Management tab.

  • UTC: UTC time and offsets must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The UTC offset is in hours. East is positive and west is negative.
  • Location: Latitude and Longitude must be set for proper operation of the driver upon connection. The longitude range is 0 to 360 degrees increasing eastward from Greenwich.
  • Parking: By default, the parking position is when the OTA to be looking directly at the celestial pole. To restore parking position to the default value, please Default under Park option. You can set a custom parking position using two methods. The mount must be unparked before you can set a new position:
    • Enter the desired AZ & ALT values for the custom parking position, then press Set and then press Write Data to save the new parking position.
    • Slew the mount to the desired parking position, then press Current to sync the encoders position to this value, and then Write Data to save.
  • Park To?: Choose one of the predefined parking locations with the Park To? property. 
    • These are defined in this document from Astro-Physics: PARK POSITIONS 

You can park the telescope by clicking on Park on the Main Control tab. If the telescope is already parked, click the park button to unpark it. You cannot perform any motion unless the telescope is first unparked!

Guide

astrophysics guide 

Guide related option:

  • Guide N/S/W/E: Guiding pulses durations in milliseconds. This property is meant for guider application (e.g. PHD2) and not intended to be used directly.
  • Guide Rate: Guiding Rate for RA & DE. Example: 0.25 means the mount shall move at 25% of the sidereal rate when the pulse is active. The sideral rate is ~15.04 arcseconds per second. So at 0.25x, the mount shall move 0.25*15.04 = 3.76 arcsecond per second. When receving a pulse for 1000ms, the total theoritical motion 3.76 arcseconds.  The recommended value is 1.0x.

Issues

  • The lx200ap_experimental driver is under development and needs testing - please be aware and always be observant of the mount when doing slews and parking.
  • When you park the mount it is recommended to disconnect the driver from the mount and power the mount down as well before connecting again.

If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at GitHub.

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knro Mon, 13 Mar 2017 10:39:23 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/astrophysics/astrophysics-experimental.html
Celestron NexStar Evolution https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/celestron/celestron-nexstar-evolution.html

This is an outdated legacy driver. Please use new Celestron AUX driver.

 

Installation

indi_nexstarevo in included with indi-full by default. It is a separate driver and can be installed from the indi-nexstarevo package. You can install release version of the driver from the main INDI PPA, and the development version of the driver from the alternative PPA.
Warning: This is a beta-quality driver and should be treated as such. There are no known functional issues with it and only one long-stability issue. The driver should not be left operational unattended.

Features

The Celestron Nextstar supports all GOTO and sky alignment functions of NexStar Evolution telescopes. In principle it should support any Celestron scope using AUX command set (most of them) with SkyFi wireless module. It was never tested with equatorial mount but should in principle work with it using sky alignment framework.

Operation

The driver auto-detects the scope on the network so the operation should be similar to other telescope drivers. You do not need to set anything in communication setup. Let me know if you have any problems with connections. Serial communication is not implemented yet. It is on the list, but quite low on it.

Issues

There are no known functional bugs for this driver, but still it is not as stable as it should be and it is not fully polished yet. If you found a bug, please report it in (preferably) github issue tracker for the driver or a main INDI project issue tracker. (You can log in with a variety of existing accounts, including Google, Yahoo and OpenID.)

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Jochym Sun, 12 Feb 2017 10:50:08 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/celestron/celestron-nexstar-evolution.html
10 Micron https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/10-micron.html

Installation

The INDI 10Micron driver is included with libindi v1.3+. For Ubuntu it is recommended to install the latest development version:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indi-full

Features

This driver supports the 10 Micron HPS and QCI models. All basic LX200 functions as well as some 10 Micron extensions are supported like goto, park, pier side, ultra precision and pressure and temperature for the refraction model and satellite tracking.

The driver ideally connects to the mount via ethernet but wifi or serial port support is available as well.

New features will still be added to the driver over time as not everything that the 10Micron API offers has been exposed.

20190208 10micron main control

Current features are:

  • Goto/Slew at 10 Micron Ultra Precision Mode
  • Sidereal, lunar, solar and custom trackrates
  • Parking
  • Pier side
  • Pulse guiding

Connectivity

For connecting to the mount Serial and Network (Ethernet and WIFI) connections are supported. Ethernet is recommended for reliability and it frees up the serial port for an optional GPS receiver. For a Network connection the Address can be an IP address or a DNS name. The mount listens to ports 3490 and 3492, either works. For Network the connection type needs to be TCP.

20190208 10micron connection

First Time Connection and Options

When running the driver for the first time, go to the Connection tab and select the desired connection mode and depending on that choice the serial port or the network address (IP address or DNS name) and network port to connect to. After making changes in the Connections tab, go to Options tab and save the Configuration settings.

Next set the telescope's aperture and focal length in the Options tab and save these settings too.

20190208 10micron options

Alignment

The Alignment tab can be used to manually create pointing models. While this works it is also very tedious and a much faster and better approach is to use MountWizzard v4 together with Plate Solving. This can be either StellarSolver or the online Nova Astrometry.net for plate solving, or a local installation of Astrometry.net together with Astrometry.net API Lite.

20190208 10micron alignment

Motion Control

The Motion Control tab shows North/South and East/West motion as well as the slew target coordinates. This part is just informative.

The tracking frequency can be changed. This value is computed by the 10Micron mount in order to emulate the corresponding LX200 command. It is typically not used or altered.

The Unattended Flip setting can be enabled or disabled. When this option is enabled, the mount will not stop when reaching the tracking limit, but it will begin an UNATTENDED slew to the other side of the meridian in order to continue to track the object. WARNING: use this option with extreme care, because it renders the mount able to start a slew operation without a specific instruction by the operator or by the controlling software.

20190208 10micron motion control

Site Management

The Site Management tab allows you to manually set the time and location of the mount. Time is better set automatically by either a GPS unit that is connected to the mount, or by the computer running the INDI server if it has some sort of network time synchronization. Location is also best set automatically by a GPS unit that is connected to the mount, or a GPS unit that is connected to the INDI. If you have a GPS unit connected directly to the mount then disable client programs such as KStars/EKOS to set the mounts time and location because these settings will fight those coming from the GPS unit.

Scope location Latitude and Longitude can be entered in the 10Micron ultra precision format of dd:mm:ss.s . The longitude polarity follows carthographic format where positive longitudes are east of the prime meridian (which passes near the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England), and negative ones are west. (The driver internally reverses this polarity as per LX200 API standard.)

20210101 10micron site management

Satellite

The Satellite tab allows you to track a satellite given its satellite orbital elements in Two-Line Element format (TLE). The TLE format is described at www.celestrak.com/NORAD/documentation/tle-fmt.php and can be entered in the Orbit Params TLE field. The Pass Window field then displays the beginning and the end timestamp of the next satellite pass. The Sat Tracking switch can be set from Halt to Track to make it all work. The TLE are stored in a database on the mount and previous entries can be selected by the Database TLE field so that they do not have to be typed again.

20210101 10micron satellite

Guide

The Guide tab allows for very simple manual guide commands.

20190208 10micron guide

Product

The Product tab lists mount specifics like the Product Name, Control Box type and Firmware version and release date.

20190208 10micron product

Issues

There are no known bugs for this driver. If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at GitHub.

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H__ Sun, 05 Feb 2017 16:58:50 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/10-micron.html
Takahashi Temma https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/takahashi-temma.html

Installation

Included with libindi v1.6+. To install it under Ubuntu:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libindi1

Features

The driver supports Takahashi Temma mounts. Basic functions such as Track, Sync, and Park are supported. Select Temma Takahasi from your client. For example, if using Ekos, you can select the driver from telescope dropdown in the Profile Editor.

ekos profile

Operation

Before establishing connection to the mount, make sure to select the appropiate serial port from the connections tab. You can either select from the available auto-detected ports (e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0) or enter a port manually.

By default, the mount assumes it is looking toward the celestial pole with the weights down. From this startup home position, you can slew the mount anywhere above the horizon. Depending on your client, you can either control the mount from your client's skymap or via the INDI control panel.

Main Control Panel

Since the mount is not aligned, GOTO is not expected to be accurate. To improve the mount accuracy, use an alignment program (e.g. Ekos Alignment) or center the target star or object within the camera/eyepiece and then use Sync to synchronize the mount position. On the next GOTO, the mount should be more accurate. When slewing to an object on the other side of the meridian, it's recommended to double-check the position again and synchronize when necessary.

Parking position can be set to any arbitrary location above the right. It is managed from the Site Management tab or directly via the Skymap Set As Parking Position option.

Issues

If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at GitHub.

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knro Thu, 05 May 2016 11:42:16 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/takahashi-temma.html
SkySensor2000PC https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skysensor2000pc.html

Installation

INDI SkySensor2000PC telescope driver is included with INDI v1.2+

Features

This driver supports the SkySensor2000PC telescope contoller using the LX200 compatible protocol. The driver is similar to the LX200 driver but the features that are not supported by the SkySensor2000PC have been removed. There are no extra features for this driver.

Operation

Using any INDI client, you can issue GOTO and Sync commands. The driver is known to work with firmware version 2.06. Since no features specific to this firmware version are used, the driver should also work with other firmware versions. If you are facing permission issues, add your user to the dialout group. After executing the following commands, please restart your PC for it to take effect.

sudo adduser $USER dialout

Issues

There are no known bugs for this driver. If you found a bug, please report it at INDI's bug tracking system at SourceForge. (You can log in with a variety of existing accounts, including Google, Yahoo and OpenID.)

]]> knro Tue, 05 Jan 2016 07:14:40 +0100 https://indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skysensor2000pc.html