Guiding with Player One Mars II

[francesco megli]

Hi all,

I am new in this forum but hope to find help to solve my problem.

I have recently replaced my guiding camera Atik Titan with a Player One Mars II mono. I soon learned that both the native and ASCOM drivers were required to get PHD2 imaging with Player One and quickly solved the first problem, thanks to a Star Gazer's Lounge Forum talk.

The second seems to be more enduring....

I use a Gemini II Losmandy mount (manual, not upgraded to GoTo system) interfaced to the PC by a SBIG Relay Adapter Box and ST4 cable, and everything worked fine with the Atik Titan. 

Well, Player One ST4 connection doesn't at all. PHD2 still recognizes correctly On-camera connection to the SBIG RAB, and correctly images through Player One Camera 1 (ASCOM) connection. 

The Player One pinout matches correctly the SBIG one, ST4 cable's RJ11 jacks (six pins) at both ends are pin-to-pin matched, but the impulse from PHD2 doesn,t reach the SBIG RAB, hence the mount. 

I tried both the automated command and the manual. With the former, calibration commands were issued but the guide star didn't move and the same happened when I tried manual guiding.

It seems that a software component is missing....something like a driver for Player One to communicate by ST4 with the SBIG.

My question: is there any need for Player One of a kind of ASCOM driver for ST4 communication similarly to the need of both native and ASCOM drivers for imaging?

If this is the case, what is it and where can I findi it?

Any other suggestion/solution is welcome...thanks in advance to anybody for help.

Best,

Francesco

[Brian Valente]

How exactly are you wiring things up, and why is SBIG involved?

ASCOM and ST4 are two different things. Do you have a Losmandy Gemini 2 which *is* a GoTo system, or an earlier non-Gemini mount?

 

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[francesco megli]

My mount is a 1990's Losmandy Gemini II *manual* equipped with a SBIG Relay Adapter Box for ST4 autoguide. The system worked quite well with an Atik Titan as the guiding camera I had to replace with a Player One Mars II.

Wiring is as follows: the Player One (formerly the Atik Titan) is connected to PC with a USB 3.0 cable and with the SBIG RAB by an ST4 cable. The SBIG RAB output (a 15 pins connector) is connected to the Control Unit of the mount by an ST4 cable, in parallel to the mount hand controller by use of an ST4 splitter. This way, the mount can be operated by either the hand controller or PHD2 when in the manual guiding mode, useful to check the system operativity. Otherwise, the mount is normally operated by PHD2.

The Player One was connected to PHD2 by the Player One Camera 1 (ASCOM) option, and the SBIG RAB by the On-camera option (in the Connect menu). 

Contrarily to what expected, commands were issued by PHD2, either automatically or manually, but were not sensed by the SBIG RAB. Calibration could be started and commands like "step 1 west" appeared on PHD2 screen, but the star image didn't move at all until PHD2 issued "guide star's motion too short for calibration" and stopped operating.

I agree ASCOM and ST4 are different things.... but there should be something enabling Player One and SBIG dialogue, not required by the Atik Titan.....the components' pinouts were checked and correct match was confirmed, as well as pin-to-pin correspondence at the RJ11 connectors at both ends of the ST4 cable, so that  connection errors can be excluded.....

[Brian Valente]

Plese post your relevant guide and debug logs using the built-in log uploader

https://openphdguiding.org/getting-help/

>>> My mount is a 1990's Losmandy Gemini II *manual* equipped with a SBIG Relay Adapter Box for ST4 autoguide. 

It sounds like a losmandy Digital Drive System, not a Gemini 2. The Gemini 2 is a GoTo system, there's no 'manual' version of the Gemini 2

>>>commands were issued by PHD2, either automatically or manually, but were not sensed by the SBIG RAB. 

I suggest you try the star-cross test in PHD2

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/f5fb9c10-8e06-4e5a-8be2-dce926c30a52n%40googlegroups.com.

[francesco megli]

Ok, sorry for a simple typing error....I refer to Losmandy G-11 mount, manual, dating back to the1990's.

Attached you can find the wiring scheme of my old Atik Titan I replaced with the Player One Mars II M, without any change else.

Player One ST4 cable instructions recommend one should select "ST4 guiding mode" option in the guiding software menu to set on ST4 guiding, but no such an option exists in PHD2, at least to my knowledge and experience of this guiding software. Nonetheless, this confirms that connections are not involved in the failure (as long as I can experiment) and that some errors linger somewhere at the software level....

Hoping for some good suggestions/smart advice, according to your experience, thank you.

Best regards

Francesco Megli

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