{"id":6908,"date":"2016-04-15T12:33:02","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T16:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/?p=6908"},"modified":"2016-04-15T12:33:38","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T16:33:38","slug":"6908","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/2016\/04\/6908\/","title":{"rendered":"LX200GPS command and control"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"meade
meade lx200gps<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I am attempting to upgrade the software command and control of the meade lx200gps (2003) and have some issues.<\/p>\n

The only software I have that has run reliably is handyavi v5.0A, telescope control, which allows 4 speeds of slew, buttons to guide NWSE and focus with a numerical guide (really useful) for the microfocuser. It connects via a USB to serial adapter and configured as COM2.<\/p>\n

Pointing and guiding are still pretty sloppy and I find that I have to hand guide every 30 seconds or so when the region of interest is about 500×500 pixels and the target is about 400×400 pixels (ie highly zoomed in with little tolerance for drifting).<\/p>\n

The laptop needs to be restarted after every connection to the scope, otherwise the com2 port is “busy” and you have no telescope control. That’s an annoyance.<\/p>\n

The capture software I use is firecapture 2.4 and it has the ability to talk to telescopes via “ascom”.
\nUnfortunately that has never worked. An initial attempt could not see a scope.
\nThen I went to
\nhttp:\/\/ascom-standards.org\/Downloads\/ScopeDrivers.htm
\nand downloaded and installed<\/p>\n

Meade LX200GPS and LX200R (combined telescope\/focuser, 5.0.0)<\/p>\n

Download\/ Installs a driver for the Meade LX200GPS and LX200R telescope mounts. This driver provides both telescope and focuser interfaces each of which may be used by separate programs. Do not use this with the LX200 Classic or the Autostar I (#495\/#497) controllers. It has been reported that this driver also works with the RCX400 except it doesn’t allow access to its unique features.<\/p>\n

I am hoping that this will allow me to stop using handyavi, allow firecapture to control the scope.. and the big payoff, control and GUIDE the scope while capturing. Especially since maybe 1 or 2 out of 5-10 runs are thrown away due to an edge of Jupiter crossing out of the frame.<\/p>\n

This has not worked to date.. only various software errors.
\nDuring the install on a windows 7 Home 32bit machine, during the “finishing installation” section I get a runtime error 429 activex component can’t create object. Twice.
\nDitto when “run as admin” install attempt.
\nlots and lots of google searching has not helped.<\/p>\n

Any idea if it *should* work? Ie is this 13 year old telescope equipped to make it work?<\/p>\n

Then I downloaded and installed the “ascom platform 6.2”. hmm.
\nThen reinstalled the ascom driver… success! No errors at least.<\/p>\n

Rebooted the computer and I guess now we wait until tonight, turn on the scope and see what happens!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am attempting to upgrade the software command and control of the meade lx200gps (2003) and have some issues. The only software I have that has run reliably is handyavi v5.0A, telescope control, which allows 4 speeds of slew, buttons to guide NWSE and focus with a numerical guide (really useful) for the microfocuser. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6908"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6910,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6908\/revisions\/6910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}