Pulse Guiding with a Fornax 152

[Steven Bellavia]

Hi,

Our local public observatory has a Fornax 152 that we would like to guide using PHD2

The only driver I have found to run it is the Advanced LX200

I can move the scope with Stellarium, using this driver, but get the "PulseGuide command to mount has failed - guiding is likely to be ineffective" error/warning when using PHD2

And it is not just a "warning" as the manual guide within PHD2 does not work either.

I had the mount setting as 0.5 sidereal in PHD2, and 8/16, entered into the Ursa Minor hand controller:

Not sure what else I can do?

This is a link to the most recent guide and debug logs from attempts tonight:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16taK1KYOFXQKPed6e5ohgpbpJhhDlXM9?usp=sharing

Thanks!

Steve

[Bruce Waddington]

The log files you uploaded don’t have public access.  Have you asked the mount vendor about an ASCOM-compatible driver for their mounts?  Using an LX200 driver is probably not a great way to go because the degree of LX200 compatibility in the mount is unknown – pulse-guiding is often dropped.  If you just need to get something working though, you could take a different approach:

 

1.       Use ST-4 (on-camera) guiding in PHD2

2.      Use the LX200 driver as an ‘aux-mount’ connection in PHD2

 

In this case, all you’re relying on is that the LX200 driver correctly returns pointing information from the mount – RA, Dec, side-of-pier – pulse-guiding wouldn’t be needed.  You’ll still have to deal with the other downsides of ST-4 guiding but the operational nuisance of repeated calibrations will be avoided.

 

Good luck,

Bruce

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[Steven Bellavia]

Thanks Bruce for the rapid reply.

I think I reset the drive to be public, (?)

When we first received the mount from Fornax, they told us to use the Meade driver (if you do look at the log, you will see I attempted with the wrong Meade driver at first, and then switched to the Advanced LX200).

The mount uses an Ursa Minor MC3 Mk II Motor and Hand Controller, and I believe that has a guider port built into it. I will check next time I am there and try that, as that is a perfectly acceptable solution.

Thanks again!

Steve

[wave...@talktalk.net]

Hello Steve, have you tried the Meade Classic (ASCOM) driver being developed by Colin Dawson? This is what I use to guide my LX200 Classic. It enables pulse guiding, so no ST4 required.

More here: https://bitbucket.org/cjdskunkworks/meadeautostar497/wiki/Home

- Jack

[mj.w...@gmail.com]

Hi Steve

Check you have the ST4 cable correctly wired, the Autoguider pinout is shown on the  Ursa Minor site

http://www.ursaminor.hu/motorcontrol_en.html

To Pulse Guide look at:

" MC5 and MC3 astronomical telescope controllers" / "Controlling the MC3 with computer, via Ascom driver"

• In the autoguider program, navigate to its telescope control menu and connect to the MC3. Please choose the "Ursa Minor Ascom Driver".
• 
  

If Ursa said you should use a Meade driver, maybe the above info on their site is obsolete ?

Michael

Wiltshire UK

[Steven Bellavia]

Hi,

Yes I did try the Meade Classic (ASCOM), and it would not connect.  But I could have been doing something wrong.

It was really cold and my brain was shutting down.

I am going to the observatory again tomorrow night and will try what Bruce suggested and other ASCOM drivers.

I am also awaiting a response from Fornax.

Thanks!

Steve

[wave...@talktalk.net]

Hi Steve,

You said: I did try the Meade Classic (ASCOM), and it would not connect. 

Have you installed the latest version of the ASCOM Platform?

The driver wont connect if you haven't.

Cheers,

- Jack

[Steven Bellavia]

Yes, I have the latest ASCOM platform.

Thanks again for the help.  I hope to hope to learn more tomorrow night.

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[Steven Bellavia]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the information.

I have not tried the Ursa Minor ASCOm driver yet, but I will soon.

It seems using the LX200 driver is the outdated one, not the other way around.  According to the link you provided:

Previous MC3 models were using Meade LX200 protocol, but for the improved functions (For example: properly handling pier side) we decided to develop and use our own Ascom driver.

So that is encouraging!

And I also like Bruce's suggestion of using the ST-4 cable with the Aux mount using the driver that I know works at least for providing the pointing information.

So I have several options to keep me busy next time out.

Thanks again!

Steve

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[Steven Bellavia]

Hi again,

Using the Ursa Minor driver worked!

I used the multi-drive version, and was easily getting 0.5 arc-second RMS total guiding error with the "stock" settings, and a 0.7 arc-minute polar alignment error (which I did not adjust yet).

But upon calibration it showed "N/A"  for the expected RA and DEC guide rates.

This might be because I did not check any of the boxes for setting the time, etc.

I did not know want it meant by "Set Time" automatically at startup, and did not want to interfere with the "normal" operation of this mount.

The only box I checked was "Start Sidereal Tracking"

But maybe this is how it gets the LST, etc. for pointing information?

And it also did not provide the scope position on the FITS file headers for plate-solving.

I did not yet try either driver with the ST4 cable and using the aux mount connection. 

It is working well enough for now, but it would be nice to have that information transmitted. 

I will try checking the "Set Time" and maybe also the "Sync to Absolute Encoders" automatically at startup. (?)

Thanks everyone so far for all the help!

Steve