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Naturally I am very happy to have had such early success
using completely unfamiliar software and equipment. Thanks must go to
Alan Buckman of AWR[Technology] and Tim Long for the ASCOM-AWR driver. The
writers of Stellarium and StellariumScope must also get a mention. The
FTDI USB-Serial cable[adapter] was also vital to my success in the
absence of a serial port on my PC. Some cheaper USB-Serial cables have
been reported as an unwanted problem. Famous last words? Coming back to further Stellarium Goto trials after lunch avoided my earlier success. I keep going back into StellariumScope but the telescope marker will not appear on the sky.
Nor will the mouse mark a point on the Stellarium screen. StellariumScope suggested the IH2 was set to other than AWR. I went into the Factory menus and found it set to LX200. Changing it to AWR, as suggested, did not help. Every time I clicked on Connect in the StellariumScope panel caused the program to crash. All very frustrating!
One obvious unknown remains: Should I set StellariumScope to Direct Serial or External processor? Both worked this morning. Now neither option works.
StellariumScope is now broken. I uninstalled and downloaded a fresh copy to no effect. It crashes every time I press Connect.
I tried Cartes du Ciel but didn't like the screen or slow and hiccupy Goto slews. At least it worked from scratch. [After a fashion] I quickly became bored with the map-like sky rendition.
Back to a fresh download of Stellarium and the Goto slews started working again. Albeit with long hesitations and frequent refusal to do anything at all. Where the problem lies remains unknown. I'd like to stick with Stellarium for its gorgeous and realistic skies. Is it merely a case of unsuitable or wrong entries in the telescope configuration entry panels? Some options are inescapable others merely a guess. Tim Long tells me that ASCOM has a starting delay while it makes checks on the system. SO that solves tat problem.
In which of Stellarium's very short list of commercial mounting systems should I place my faith? Should I treat it as an off-board processor or stick with Direct Serial?
Are the default settings in AWR IH2 suitable for what I am trying to do? I have not polar aligned the mounting because the motors are just sitting on the floor indoors. There is no mounting to align as it is sitting in the shed without even the remotest of connections. I have not set any horizon nor maximum RA or Declination. Nor even aligned on a star. Do these affect the behaviour of ASCOM-AWR? I have no way of knowing. Things did seem to go seriously wrong when I was aiming for targets around Polaris. Could this have inhibited Gotos to protect the mounting or OTA? There is much emphasis on mounting alignment and limitations which I have completely ignored until now.
I have yet to try the ASCOM_AWR drive system on my old Vista PC. So will obviously report any progress there. It too is sitting in a frosty shed. So will need to be gently thawed out if it comes back indoors for drive testing. Perhaps a progression from coolest indoor room to warmest in a preordained series?
I really must finish the worm support hardware to ensure both rigidity and long term stability. No point in having potentially accurate Gotos. Not if the telescope owner then has to search the sky area because of slop in the mechanical parts of the mounting and drive system. All it needs is another ten degrees above freezing to make construction life merely tolerable rather than physically painful. Running a fan heater on the end of a fifty yard extension cable might not be a very good idea! Not least the cost with 1000% of assorted taxes on Danish electricity bills.
My new, shorter, SS grub screws for the drive pulleys have arrived in the post. Though that means I'll probably have to mark the pulleys with electrical tape to count the rpm. Heads you win...
Click on any image for an enlargement.
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