I noticed in KStars 3.1 on Ubuntu that the mount automatically gets parked after polar alignment. I am sure there is a good reason for introducing this, but unfortunately I am not happy with it. I have a mobile set up that I put in my backyard at the start of the night and take down again in the morning. This means I need to do a polar alignment every time I am going to image.

I do not always point the mount very accurately at the north pole using the polar scope and very often need two iterations of the polar alignment routine. I now sometimes forget to unpark the mount in between iterations which obviously is my fault but it would help very much if I could instruct Ekos not to park the mount and simply continue from where it ended once polar alignment is done.

Thanks very much for taking this into consideration.


Clear skies, Wouter

I fell into this trap again several times last night. So I am bumping it. Any chance to make this optional, please?

Thanks, Wouter

Sorry just saw this. The reason this was introduced is to make Polar Alignment measurement reliable the next time you run it as many would run it more than once to check their progress. So you must start in parking position, and it ends in the parking position.

Previously without parking, users would try to re-measure the error but as I found out, unless it starts exactly from the same position, you'll get false variations that can lead you astray.

No problem, there are loads of messages on this forum

Yes, I understand the reasoning behind introducing this. But if possible would you please consider making it optional? That would be a very big help to me. Many thanks in advance!

I kind of like this feature because I’m also mobile and do one or two PA iterations so it’s nice that it returns to park when it’s done but maybe it should return to where it started instead of “park” so it doesn’t have to be un-parked each time. Or return to “home” assuming that’s the CP.

Just bumping an old topic because last night I fell into this trap again. I'd still like this to be made optional please


Thanks, Wouter

Sorry, I thought I was posting on my "Default Parking" thread.

I'm not understanding this... so there is a reason "not" to park? I suppose there might be some internal coding thing that gets messed up by parking, but I thought parking was a "safe" place for the rig.

I park several times a night due to "issues" like my Focuser was not working (it for some reason defaulted to my Canon Camera instead of my Deep Sky AF1 Focuser that is designated as my focuser). So I was stopping and starting the drivers to see what was up? Plus one entire KStars crash.

But when I go to bed and still imaging, I want it to park at X:XXam. But really, I want it to park (if not already parked) every morning. I can't think of a reason I want that mount to come close to crashing into my pier. Good thing I have a mount that is 'supposed' to handle that event.

I want it to park in the morning as well. But since my rig is not fixed, I'd like to lose as little time as possible after I set it up. So I focus more or less, perform a polar alignment and then slew to a star to focus properly. At the end of the polar alignment the mount gets parked and that means that the next slew command will not be executed until I unpark the mount and enable tracking again. A minor nuisance but a nuisance nonetheless especially when, for reasons unknown to me, my rig malfunctions like last night and I get annoyed because I can't get it to work. When it then finally works, I forget to unpark the mount and ... well ... more annoyance to put it mildly. The mount didn't used to get parked and I got used to that but then the behaviour was changed and frankly I don't like it. Hence my feature request.


Clear skies, Wouter

would it help if after it arrives to parking position, it immediately "unparks"?

Yes that would certainly help. I don't mind the parking itself, just that I need to unpark it. Thanks very much in advance!

Ok, I will add option to alignment options "Auto Park", that you can switch off in KStars v3.3.3