Greetings friends.

I recently purchased StellarmateOS and have put it to good use on a Pi4-4GB.

I've spent many hours over the past two months trying to figure everything out. I've figured out focusing, solving, and (unguided) photography.

I'm stuck on two things, though, and I need help.

1) When I try to do a polar align, I select the default 30 (degrees, I assume). My telescope then takes a picture of the default position, pointed roughly at Polaris. Then, it rotates the telescope E or W (depending on which I select). So far so good. But it tries to rotate the telescope SO FAR it seems as if it wants to crawl under the tripod. It hits my AVX default slew limits, and Celestron, in their paternalistic wisdom, stop any further motion. "That's strange," thinks I. So, I change to "20" (degrees?). Same result for E and W. It never slows to the point where it takes a 2nd picture, much less a 3rd. I've searched the forums and I can't see anybody else complaining about this. Thus, it must be a problem with my behavior or something I've misconfigured. Can somebody help? I wasted HOURS last night trying to get this to work. I've yet to take a picture (other than darks) with EKOS/Stellarmate, and I'm desperate for an astropic-inspired endorphin rush.

2) "OK, I can at least do tracking," contemplates I. So... I try to use the tracking module. I get a nice focus through my Orion TOAG snuggled up to my Celestron 8300 camera. I trundle off to the Guiding module. I take a "Capture" image, and I see stars (the good kind). "Great," I emote with joy. Next, I click on "Guide," with a 2s exposure of my SSAG, using auto-star selection and via "AVX" mount (I've tried the camera guiding option too - and yes I have the ST4 cable connected). The calibration starts! I'm as optimistic as a senior on a prom date. It calibrates RA-. Finished that in a couple of seconds. Great! (I'm starting to get sweaty palms). Next, it performs the RA+ calibration... and performs it, and tries, and struggles, and after 21 tries, it gives me a soul-crushing error. So, I dash off to the options and change my pulse width to 300. Same symptom. It's like my telescope doesn't respond to the calibration commands. "Well," I think, "Perhaps there's a problem with sewing the mount." So, I launch the scope control gadget and slew left and right, up and down. No problem. Defeated, I call it a night at 4AM, for the fourth or fifth time since starting my relationship with the Stellarmate. I'm beginning to feel jilted. Can somebody help me think of what I'm doing wrong (besides my cologne and Hawaiian shirt)?

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