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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Indiserver WiFi option for Synscan Goto?

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I tried using indi_skywatcherAltAz mount last evening, but "crashed and burned" (pilot-speak for failure). It drove the scope smoothly, but I couldn't hit a target on GOTO...close, but not close enough. Also, it wouldn't hold a target. Drift made it impossible to use. Sync seemed to have no effect. I get a feeling that using it with a guide scope, constantly correcting and holding position, is the ticket.

This may sound odd, but highly appropriate: We got frustrated and decided to use the Tablet with Synscan. In a navigation error (heading for the wrong fuzzy gray area after a near miss GOTO) trying for the Angelfish Cluster, we ended up at the "Dumbbell Nebula." Perhaps that is the default. If one fails to operate the scope properly, one ends up at the dumbbell.

I did get some good shots of the dumbbell, however. A bit noisey, but I didn't take time to process properly.
Last edit: 3 years 8 months ago by Jon Carleton.
3 years 8 months ago #56894
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What you need is plate solving, I think!
That makes the difference to using just Synscan.
One more good news: one more improvement have been made to the drivers: joystick support has been fixed. So now you can use a joystick (or rather an USB gamepad) instead of the "hand controller simulator" on screen.
I even use it for eyepeace observing, it is nice just panning around the sky. In order to know what I see, i put the camera on the finder scope, and use plate solving with that!
Then connect SkySafary on my phone to INDI and pan with gamepad and I can see on SkySafary what I am looking at.
3 years 8 months ago #57059

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I'm still having problems. I did install a guide scope, but last evening, when I was try to align it, the indi_skywatcherAltAzMount driver would just stop working. It always went like this:
1. Goto target (close but no cigar).
2. Use either "hand controller simulator" or Indi Control Panel->Motion Control North/SouthEastWest to try and center the target.
3. Two or three adjustments and it just stops moving the scope. The only cure was a complete powerdown and restart. I had to go back to the indi_skywatcherAltAzSimple to complete my guider alignment.

Note that this was a fresh compile from a git yesterday morning running on the new 64 bit Raspberry Pi OS on a Pi4 aarch64. Last time, I was using Ubuntu Server aarch64 20.04, and didn't have this particular problem. But there were no errors in the compile. I also tried to get PHD2 to connect and the only INDI driver it liked was the indi_synscan_telescope driver. It "couldn't see" the other two drivers during the connect routine. Ekos, can, though.

I plan to try either Ekos or PHD2 plate solving as soon as I can get things stable again. While indi_skywatcherAltAzSimple has never given me any operational issues, its tracking is too wobbly for photos.
3 years 8 months ago #57081

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In the indi_skywatcherAltAzMount driver the guiding code is disabled, the comment says: " TODO: Hide the auto-guide support now because it is not production-ready" which I don't understand since the whole driver is "not production-ready".
Yopu can enable it for yourself, by removing the comment sign from this two lines:
    // Guiding support
    // TODO: Hide the auto-guide support now because it is not production-ready
    //    initGuiderProperties(getDeviceName(), GUIDE_TAB);
 
    //    setDriverInterface(getDriverInterface() | GUIDER_INTERFACE);

It is at the end of SkywatcherAPIMount::initProperties() function, around line 460.
I have only tried EKOS internal guiding, not PHD2 yet.

In my experience there are some parts of the sky that this driver somehow does not like, and the scope mark is just jumps away. Other parts of the sky works. I do not understand.
The indi_skywatcherAltAzSimple driver is a fork from the indi_skywatcherAltAzMount driver, removing most of the complicated parts of the code, completely replacing the tracking code. I don't know why and when it happened. I'm new to INDI.
Unfortunately the way it does tracking is completely unsuitable for photos, since as you say, too wobbly. It is maybe working for wide field photos with DSLR only, but not with big scope.
Maybe sometime I will try to take the best part of both driver and make a 3rd one from them. But it is not the good direction, since we have too many drivers, not too few. So now I concentrate on fixing the existing one.
3 years 8 months ago #57084

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I agree, best to repair one that nearly works than to "Frankenstein" a new one from bits and pieces of others. I wish I could be of some help. I can, and will of course, make the changes you suggest and recompile and test, but my abilities with C or C++ are very limited. I could probably emulate the driver in Java or even assembler, but that would be worse than useless.

Is there some way to do more logging to perhaps find what indi_skywatcherAltAzMount is locking up? And yes, I have see that business where it starts a severe drift at certain targets.."parts of the sky." I think the two things that I find most annoying are having to restart when it gives up moving the scope and when you Sync and it goes into that "drift into oblivion" mode that only another Goto can cure.

Trying again tonight....no PHD2, and maybe Ekos plate solving.
3 years 8 months ago #57086

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OK, I'm going to have to quit saying that I plan to use the scope on a "particular" evening. Yesterday afternoon, it was hot but cloudless, so I set the scope out in the shade to acclimate. By twilight, when I went out to collimate, massive thunderstorms moving in from the NW. Lightening everywhere. So, I packed it in. Somehow the weather KNOWS when I plan ahead.
3 years 8 months ago #57104

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Gubi,

I've been away a bit dealing with some health issues, but I am back for now. I did recompile the skywatcherAltAzMount code with the Guiding commented-out bit removed. It compiled fine and now can be seen by PHD2 (It couldn't before now). I plan to test it tomorrow and see if it will operate the scope properly and guide.

I finally got the hang of plate solving, if I can just get the mount to go where it solves.
Last edit: 3 years 5 months ago by Jon Carleton.
3 years 5 months ago #61717

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Gubi,

I got in several hours of testing last evening. The result being that I found lots of bugs in indi_synscan_telescope. The most remarkable was in moving from Saturn to Jupiter at about 9:30 EDT from my location in NW Georgia (Thursday, October 15, 2020). Saturn slew in KStars was OK, but try to move to Jupiter (virtually next door) and the chart pointer jumped about 20 degrees up and 30 degrees West. Moving back to Saturn, it would jump back. The scope didn't exactly follow the pointer, but it didn't go to Jupiter either. Upon the return to Saturn request, it missed by a a few degrees.

The SynScan Android app, as the intermediary in these transactions would slew with reasonable accuracy to Saturn and correct the issue....more or less. For grins, I tried Stellarium with the indi_synscan_telescope driver (and the required SynScan Andriod app) and got similar results. I recall you mentioned similar issues in this thread or one like it. Regardless, I won't bother with the indi_synscan_telescope driver again. Having the Android app in the middle of things always seemed a bad idea.
Last edit: 3 years 5 months ago by Jon Carleton.
3 years 5 months ago #61742

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I spent a lot of time today with the indi_skywatcherAltAzMount driver that I re-compiled with the guiding enabled and, so far, haven't found anything spectacularly wrong with it. The park/unpark function is a bit wonky, but it always was. It used to spin the scope South by default. Now, Unpark does nothing until you click on the Park function...and a quick Abort (because nobody really knows where it is headed and it is in a hurry). After the unpark/park/abort ritual, the driver behaves reasonably well. Much better than either indi_skywatcherAltAzSimple or indi_synscan_telescope.

Some programs that provide a manual pointing interface (simulated hand control) get the East/West arrows backwards. Odd that there is a switch for North/South to reverse (and North/South are almost never wrong), yet none for East/West. Clear (enough) skies for guiding a bit tonight. I'll report back.
3 years 5 months ago #61757

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I have tried guiding with the AltAzMount driver driver with not much luck. Although I've tried internal guiding, not PHD. Maybe I should give a try to PHD too...
3 years 5 months ago #61768

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As far as I remember I was able to get the synscan indi driver totally fooled by some not-so-successful sync operation. The sync operation works somewhat different in the case of synscan than the other cases, because the sync makes nothing else but adds an offset to the coordinates at the pathc of the sky at where it is used. And it is done by the synscan app, the INDI driver has no knowlade about it. So it can drive the INDI driver's knowladge about the coordinates and the synscan app coordinates totally out of sync. I know that synscan keeps track of these 'sync offsets' for every pretty small parts of the sky, althogh I'm not sure how small those pathces are. Jupiter and Saturn are pretty damn close...
3 years 5 months ago #61769

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I like to use the telescope with a game controller. This way I can manually stear the scope, and have a feeling of manual search for objects on the sky, while INDI partnered with SkySafari gives me the knowledge of what I'm looking at and where am I going.
3 years 5 months ago #61770

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