Skywatcher Telescope Driver

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Mei Li Wu

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Aug 5, 2024, 12:25:14 PM8/5/24

to soreappeibhad

Installsa driver that connects to Software Bisque's TheSky X/6/5 Astronomy Software and makes it look like a standard ASCOM telescope. This allows ASCOM-based astronomy software to use TheSky (including TPOINT and ProTrack) as a smart telescope controller.It is required for the Paramount mounts, and may be used with TheSky controlling any other of its supported telescope types, or via its built-in outbound ASCOM support, and then using ASCOM telescope drivers. This driver provides Telescope V3 support, 100% conformance, and compatibility with TheSky X (10.2.0 or later).

Installs a driver for all computerized Celestron telescopes, now including the new Celestron Focuser.NOTE: Focuser moves are prevented if the focuser is not calibrated. Calibrate the Focuser before anything else!Also this driver does its best to compensate for the extra time needed for final approach in slews but which is not reported via the Celestron controller. This driver has passed the Conformance Checker tests. See the help file and release notes(!), installed as part of the driver, for a full description.

Whenever I select the "Skywatcher Telescope" inside the "ASCOM Chooser" and press 'Properties', I get a "ASCOM.SkyWatcher.Location" Error and cannot connect to the mount. When that happens I have to reinstall the skywatcher ascom drivers and then am able to open the properties window for the skywatcher mount ONCE only. Whenever I try to open it again, i get the 'location'-error. That also happens quite often, when i only attempt to connect to the skywatcher. I wonder if somebody else encountered this problem. I suspect it is a problem with the skywatcher ascom driver and how it reads the GPS location: The driver reads the location from the handset itself, not the edit-fields inside the property editor. That is fine, but whenever one opens the property editor it wants to fill the fields with the gps-coordinates from the handbox and a conversion error occurs (int2float). In The ASCOM-Profile Explorer the coordinates are saved as float, but inside the logs after the location error i see that it tried to read the float as integer without a comma and gives the error (521134244 > 90 (52.1134244 being my location)).

On a different note, I also tried to run EQMOD but here i have a ton of different issues. Connection works, but i cannot move the RA-axis in sub-sidereal steps. It doesnt give an error, but I can hear that after the software gives the signal to the mount, it doesnt move. Also only RA but not DEC has this problem. This makes running PHD2 for example useless. Also its not a hardware problem, since running the mount via the Skywatcher Ascom (see above) alows for a 0.5x sidereal mode, which works fine for RA and DEC. So I guess its a EQMOD-issue in this case.

I have the EQ-5 mount with Goto Synscan V4.39.20, I connect to my laptop via RJ11/USB cable bought on Amazon , and I have download the latest ASCOM platform 6.6 as well as the ASCOM driver here Ascom driver. I use N.I.N.A 2.0 Beta to connect to my mount via ASCOM driver.

First thing is to confirm the setting of the EQDIR cables com port setting assuming that windows has installed the FTDI driver. In device manager right click on the com port and select properties. - So Launch device manager > Ports (COM & LPT) > PORT > Right click >Properties > Port setting tab

I don't use NINA, but I believe it either used a native built in connection to Skywatcher mounts, or if using ASCOM need an ASCOM driver such as EQMOD or GSServer as the interface between NINA and the mount. Either of these will need installing and configuring. EQMOD, being around for over a decade is well documented and covered in post on the forum, so a bit of searching or reading will cover that.

Thank you, I have install EQMOD, at the beginning it didn't work, but I noticed I would have to set on my handcontrol the option connect direct to PC, and then it worked, Is this the way ? I tried a couple of things and it worked, waiting for a clear sky to try the other features again. I didn't know we would need EQMod besides the ASCOM drivers, I thought the ASCOm drivers would be enough, because it has the ascom server when I connected to my mount one app called ascomserver poped up, anyways Thank you very much for you help.

Yes, if using the handset as the "EQDIR" cable between the mount and PC than the handset does indeed need to be set to PC-Direct mode (unless it's a newer version with USB apparently). It will show up in device manager as a com port.

Basically the ASCOM platform is a system that allows compatible hardware and software to communicate between them. So for example a CCD camera will be ASCOM compliant by using agreed protocols written into its ASCOM driver. This means that you can have confidence that it will work with PHD2 if a guide camera, or imaging programs like NINA or APT. In order to mount control you need an ASCOM compliant "driver" which is where EQMOD / GSServer comes in. Being ASCOM compliant it is "seen" by any other ASCOM compliant application that needs to move the mount, such as the planetarium application or guiding application.

When you say new version with USB port, my handcontrol has also the printer port, that I think it should translate to USB, is that the port you mentioned? So, if I buy the printer cable that has this square connection in one side and usb connection on the oder side would work? Sorry for asking it again, just to be sure if my version it is the newer version you were talking about. By the way, I'm using 130/650 PDS skywatcher + dslr nikon D610, EQ5 + Synscan goto, 60mm SVBony guide scope, and ASI 120MM camera for guiding, do you think it is a good setup for begginers? My goal is to keep this setup for 2 or 3 years, and then I will upgrade to better mount and equipment, like EQ6 or EQ8, it will depend on how far I will go with this hobbie, of course.

If your handset has a USB connection like the one on the right in this image then yes all you need is an A to B USB lead as per section 7 on page 21 of the manual you don't need any USB to serial adaptor and serial cable

Hello guys, since our last message, yesterday finally I had a clear sky, so I could test out the equipment again, the error is not happening anymore, So, the EQMod worked well, however I didn't find the driver specific for my EQ5 mount, then I used the HEQ5/EQ6, and it worked well until I start doing the guiding and the alignment via Plate solving.

So I brought my equipment to my back yard and started setting up everything. As I said I don't have visual to Polaris, so I tried to make the alignment via 3 start Plate Solving on N.I.N.A. It started going well, but something really weird happens after while, the plate solving just start asking to go up and up on Altitude axis which is very weird since I believe the altitude should not change after being set, am I right? and I noticed the azimuth also started to increase, what I think that happens is the mount stops the sideral tracking or something. Should it be because of the drivers I have? It begins well and then out of sudden starting increasing the azimuth and altitude.

Secondly I also tried the auto-guiding but it didn't work, it says communication error, which leads me another question then I have a question how to set up the cables? I'm connecting the Hand control via USB to my pc, there is a cable on the Synscan Control directly to my Synscan Hand Control, The guiding from my camera is connecting to the SynScan control(not hand control) via ST4 which I believe it is the right way, isn't it? The guide camera connects to my pc via USB. Or should I not connect the guide camera to the hand control since my pc is controlling the mounting? My hand control is set to PC direct connection, othewise it doesn't work to connect via EQMod.

My suggestion would be to remove the USB cable form the handset and plug it into the USB socket on the synscan box. In fact as you are using a PC for control there is no need to have the handset connected at all, and it can be disconnected and removed (with the power off before doing so). I have no idea what "driver" you used for an HEQ5, but I'm guessing you mean you selected HEQ5/EQ6 form the list in EQmod. This should be OK as EQMod gets the information of the mount when it first connects and interrogates the mount. When you connect the synscan unit direct to the PC it should detect the serial port and add it to windows Device manager. You will need to go into the properties of that port and set the speed (baud) rate to 115200 rather than 9600 as before. In EQmod you will need to change the port number to the new one windows will have allocated to this new connection.