Connecting to a Celestron Advanced VX Mount

[Martin Heigan]

Hi all,

I just recently got my equipment, so excuse any ignorance...

I have a Celestron Advanced VX Mount and an Orion StarShoot Autoguider.

I installed the latest ASCOM platform, Celestron ASCOM driver, and PHD Guiding 2.5.

I can connect to the StarShoot Autoguider without any problems, but no Com Ports appear when I select the Celestron driver for my Mount. Just to be sure, I tried different cables, different USB ports on my Laptop, disabled the Firewall and Anti-Virus, but it makes no difference.

I am able to connect via the 'Generic Hub' or 'On Camera' ASCOM presets, but not via the correct Celestron driver.

Any ideas where the problem might be?

Regards

Martin
--

Martin Heigan
3D VFX Supervisor|Photographer 

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Martin.  I’m not entirely sure what you mean when you say “no Com ports” appear.  Your problem may be that you haven’t set the properties correctly in the ASCOM driver for the mount – including the COM port.  So try this: in the Connect Equipment dialog, choose the Celestron mount in the drop-down list for ‘Mount’.  But don’t connect right away.  Instead, click on the button immediately to the right of the list – that will get you into the ASCOM setup dialog for the mount.  In there, you want to be sure you’ve chosen the correct COM port and that the other mount properties are set the way you want them.  Once you’ve done this one time, you probably won’t have to do it again unless the COM ports move around on your system.

 

Good luck.

Bruce

 

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[Martin Heigan]

Hi Bruce,

Thank you for the reply. I follow all the steps you describe. The problem is that in properties, no Com ports appear in the drop down menu, so I am not able to make any selection. As a result I can't connect.

Martin

[bw_msgboard]

As I’m sure you know at this point, this doesn’t have anything to do with PHD2 – there’s something more basic that’s not right.  Perhaps the USB-serial driver isn’t installed or configured correctly.  Since you’re running Windows, you should be able to plug in just the USB-serial adapter and get a response from Windows – either a ‘New Hardware’ dialog or the two-tone audio signal saying something just got plugged in.  You can look in the Windows device manager to see if the adapter is registered and working correctly.

 

You can easily eliminate PHD2 from the testing by using the ASCOM ‘Poth’ tool.  That’s located in the Common Files\ASCOM\Telescope folder on your system.  You can run it directly, then use the ‘Choose Scope’ button to try to connect with your mount.  Until that will connect and read various properties from your mount, PHD2 won’t be able to connect.   If your problem is tied to the specific mount and driver you’re trying to use, you might get more specific help on the ASCOM support forum.

[Martin Heigan]

Yes, thank you I realize that.

I was just hoping that someone else had a similar issue and could tell me how they got around it.

Regards

Martin

On Sunday, May 31, 2015 at 2:15:00 AM UTC+2, Bruce Waddington wrote:

As I’m sure you know at this point, this doesn’t have anything to do with PHD2 – there’s something more basic that’s not right.  Perhaps the USB-serial driver isn’t installed or configured correctly.  Since you’re running Windows, you should be able to plug in just the USB-serial adapter and get a response from Windows – either a ‘New Hardware’ dialog or the two-tone audio signal saying something just got plugged in.  You can look in the Windows device manager to see if the adapter is registered and working correctly.

 

You can easily eliminate PHD2 from the testing by using the ASCOM ‘Poth’ tool.  That’s located in the Common Files\ASCOM\Telescope folder on your system.  You can run it directly, then use the ‘Choose Scope’ button to try to connect with your mount.  Until that will connect and read various properties from your mount, PHD2 won’t be able to connect.   If your problem is tied to the specific mount and driver you’re trying to use, you might get more specific help on the ASCOM support forum.

 

Good luck.

Bruce

 

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From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Martin Heigan
Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2015 4:07 PM
Cc: open-phd...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Connecting to a Celestron Advanced VX Mount

 

Hi Bruce,

Thank you for the reply. I follow all the steps you describe. The problem is that in properties, no Com ports appear in the drop down menu, so I am not able to make any selection. As a result I can't connect.

 

Martin

On Sunday, May 31, 2015, bw_msgboard <bw_m...@earthlink.net> wrote:

Hi Martin.  I’m not entirely sure what you mean when you say “no Com ports” appear.  Your problem may be that you haven’t set the properties correctly in the ASCOM driver for the mount – including the COM port.  So try this: in the Connect Equipment dialog, choose the Celestron mount in the drop-down list for ‘Mount’.  But don’t connect right away.  Instead, click on the button immediately to the right of the list – that will get you into the ASCOM setup dialog for the mount.  In there, you want to be sure you’ve chosen the correct COM port and that the other mount properties are set the way you want them.  Once you’ve done this one time, you probably won’t have to do it again unless the COM ports move around on your system.

 

Good luck.

Bruce

 

From: open-phd-guiding@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd-guiding@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Martin Heigan
Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2015 3:00 PM
To: open-phd-guiding@googlegroups.com
Subject: Connecting to a Celestron Advanced VX Mount

 

Hi all,

I just recently got my equipment, so excuse any ignorance...

I have a Celestron Advanced VX Mount and an Orion StarShoot Autoguider.

I installed the latest ASCOM platform, Celestron ASCOM driver, and PHD Guiding 2.5.

I can connect to the StarShoot Autoguider without any problems, but no Com Ports appear when I select the Celestron driver for my Mount. Just to be sure, I tried different cables, different USB ports on my Laptop, disabled the Firewall and Anti-Virus, but it makes no difference.

I am able to connect via the 'Generic Hub' or 'On Camera' ASCOM presets, but not via the correct Celestron driver.

Any ideas where the problem might be?

Regards

Martin
--

Martin Heigan

3D VFX Supervisor|Photographer 

 

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[Martin Heigan]

Thank you for the help, I found the problem.

[Bruce Waddington]

Maybe if you described what you did to fix it - even if it was silly - it would help someone else down the line... :-)

[Martin Heigan]

It was a driver issue that I only picked up when I took a look at the Device Manager as you recommended. I reinstalled the driver and was then able to see the correct port in the properties drop-down menu.

Regards

Martin
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[Michael Murchison]

Same problem today with a Celestron 8SE..... Got error message The PortName cannot be empty.  Go to mount setup........ click on Com Port..... drop down is blank...... cannot type in Com.4

[Rick Evans]

This thread already helped me with my just acquired Orion Magnificent Mini Autoguider and Celestron AVX. 

Thanks guys.