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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

One of those Losmandy nights

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From 1930-2355, all spent at the whims of either the solver not solving or the Losmandy mount refusing to slew to the opposite pierside (or changing pier side for glob only knows what!). Seems almost appropriate to lug the laptop outside and hookup PHD2 and the old Canon DSLR. I took great sequences last night and even caught E2 for 40min+, but tonight without any update KStars and EKOS have led me (or I've led it) to absolute frustration. It's heaven when EKOS does everything right, but absolute hell when it does everything except one specific thing. I feel like it's guaranteed to be not even on the radar of issues tomorrow, and instead guiding will all of a sudden be out of whack HAH!

Anybody else have recurring issues with Losmandy mounts? They're so solid, I just feel sometimes maybe we need a Gemini 3 already...
1 year 2 months ago #89840

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Replied by Paul on topic One of those Losmandy nights

Jacob,

You haven't provided many details but that sounds like a limits issue.

It is critical to have the INDI software and mount Limits aligned or things will not happen when they should.

Other than that, I can only suggest that the Losmandy Gemini 2 is not giving me an INDI specific issues.

Paul
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jacob Nowatzke
1 year 2 months ago #89872

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Paul, I'm not completely sure how to explain the entirety of my situation, but I do need to express that you were on the right track.

For now, I have my mount limits (per HC) set to 113:48 E, 111:20 W, and a GoTo limit of 4:15. My fix to slewing being allowed over EKOS was to select and unselect HA> and choose either 5 or 0 as the entry. These values are one I'm assuming are outside or inside of the 4:15 set on the HC. So what might I be missing? Having the HA> MF setting deselected on startup causes the slew to fail if a MF is required to slew in the first place.

Losmandy has always seemed like a tinkerer's dream, but that's not always great news when I'm not in the mood to tinker. Further, I was unable to practice before prime sky conditions because of the months of clouds, rain, and even cyclones this season has brought to my area. A perfect situation for things to go awry.


May I ask what limit settings you have on your HC and in EKOS, Paul?

Other issues were caused by Optical Train settings, mount settings in INDI control panel, and how the two interact with eachother. I'd prefer to get to the bottom of the limit settings first.
1 year 2 months ago #89966

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Replied by Paul on topic One of those Losmandy nights

Jacob,

The mount safety limits should be set for your own setup with everything installed on the telescope. By slewing and centring the telescope you will be able to see when the camera touches the mount. At that point you should back off a bit and set that limit. You will need to do this for both sides of the meridian and then set the western go to limit.

The instructions to do this are here Setting Losmandy Gemini 2 Safety Limits .

Now, to set INDI you need to understand how the limits work.

If you are outside the safety limits and command a goto that does not cross the limits then it will go there without a flip.
If you are outside the safety limits and command a goto that is outside the opposite limit then it will go there with a flip.
If the telescope is tracking and reaches the Western Limit it will not perform a slew.
When the telescope is tracking and passes the Western limit - Western Goto Limit but has not reached the Western Limit and a goto to the current position is issued it will perform a flip.

So INDI needs to issue a slew to the current location when the mount is betwen the Western limit - Western Goto Limit and the Western Limit.
This is expressed in degrees but I prefer to think of it in minutes.
Unfortunately INDI does not allow you to enter a range where it should issue the slew command.
With INDI you enter when the slew should be issued, which should be the number of degrees or minutes after or before the Meridian and should match the Western limit - Western Goto Limit value (with a small allowance for matching the mount with INDI).

When INDI knows the mounts has reached the specified position it will command a slew if it is not capturing an image - and that is important - it waits for the capture to finish.

When the capture finishes it will issue the slew command.
This should work as long as the Western limit has not been reached - but INDI does not know this, it assumes it will work.
It really needs a range to work properly, so that it can determine if it will work - I have detailed this in a previous post.

So, for it to work reliably you need to try and have as large a Western Goto Limit as possible. In my case I needed to buy a pier extention for my tripod to raise the telescope enough that the legs did not interfere with the camera.

Paul
1 year 1 month ago #89969

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