Scope Upgrade Renders BYN Slew Function Inoperable

[tgrantonic]

I recently moved from a 12” Meade LX200ACF to a 12” Meade LX600 ACF. Everything about BYN had worked pretty much flawlessly using the Meade Generic ASCOM driver and my Nikon Z8. With the new mount, however, BYN does not want to slew to the coordinates pulled in by Carte du Ciel. I get a message that says “waiting” for a few seconds, then “slew complete”. But the scope never moves. I tried the LX200 version of the ASCOM driver but it’s causing other issues. I have not confirmed that plate solving works yet. It appears to go through the motions, but it fails because I’m just testing inside my house since the weather has been so dang miserable. Anyone know of a solution or if this is a compatibility issue with the LX600 mount? I can work around it to a degree, but it kind of throws a wrench into my workflow.

[astroman133]

Whatever the problem, it is most likely not something that BYN can fix. It is most likely caused by a problem with the ASCOM driver that you are using.

ASCOM support for Meade mounts has always been problematic, since Meade refuses to provide a driver. Over the years there have been several drivers that have worked, or not, after a fashion. I would suggest contacting the driver author for help. ASCOM has extensive logging capabilities that may help. Also, there is a driver testing tool, called Conform. It cam be used to test whether the driver appears to implement the ASCOM telescope commands correctly. Any failures can be sent to the driver author. It is a separate download from the ASCOM web site.

Also, you said that "BYN does not want to slew to the coordinates pulled in by Cartes du Ciel". Even though this is not the right place to ask for ASCOM support, it might be helpful to provide more info about what you are trying to do with BYN that is leading to failed slews. You need to keep in mind that using the chevron arrow buttons to nudge the mount is not actually slewing the mount since there is no destination specified. Moving the mount during plate solving may not be done by BYN, but by ASTAP.

Also, when reporting an issue or asking for help it is ALWAYS important to know which version of BYN you are using. The version number and the license type are independent. The version number is a multipart numeric value like 2.1.3 while licenses are Trial, Classic, or Premium.

[tgrantonic]

5 hours ago, astroman133 said:

Whatever the problem, it is most likely not something that BYN can fix. It is most likely caused by a problem with the ASCOM driver that you are using.

ASCOM support for Meade mounts has always been problematic, since Meade refuses to provide a driver. Over the years there have been several drivers that have worked, or not, after a fashion. I would suggest contacting the driver author for help. ASCOM has extensive logging capabilities that may help. Also, there is a driver testing tool, called Conform. It cam be used to test whether the driver appears to implement the ASCOM telescope commands correctly. Any failures can be sent to the driver author. It is a separate download from the ASCOM web site.

Also, you said that "BYN does not want to slew to the coordinates pulled in by Cartes du Ciel". Even though this is not the right place to ask for ASCOM support, it might be helpful to provide more info about what you are trying to do with BYN that is leading to failed slews. You need to keep in mind that using the chevron arrow buttons to nudge the mount is not actually slewing the mount since there is no destination specified. Moving the mount during plate solving may not be done by BYN, but by ASTAP.

Also, when reporting an issue or asking for help it is ALWAYS important to know which version of BYN you are using. The version number and the license type are independent. The version number is a multipart numeric value like 2.1.3 while licenses are Trial, Classic, or Premium.

I'm using BYN 3.5.0 and I'm pretty aware of the issues surrounding ASCOM drivers for Meade scopes and at this point, I'm not expecting anything from Meade, seeing that they're out of business. I was just hoping someone had experienced a similar issue with their mount and had a workaround. As I messed with it more this evening, I learned that it appears that BYN and Cartes du Ciel do not like to share a com port like they used to with the other scope. And since I only have one com port, I'm kind of stuck, otherwise, I think I could get it to work again. My workaround is to not try connecting the mount to Cartes do Ciel, rather only to BYN using the Meade LX200 ASCOM driver. From that point, everything worked as long as I pulled the coordinates from CdC and had the ASTAP executable listed in the field. Plate solving would appear to be working as well, though I haven't formally tested it due to cloudy skies. The only thing I appear to be missing is the graphic on the CdC interface that indicates where the scope is pointing. I guess I can live with that for the time being. Thanks for the additional information.

[astroman133]

You said "it appears that BYN and Cartes du Ciel do not like to share a com port". This is a function of the Meade telescope driver that you have chosen to use. not BYN or Cartes du Ciel. COM ports are, by their design, only usable from a single application at a time. ASCOM supports a local server type of driver. In this case the driver is the single application and the driver allows other applications to "share" the COM port because they are both going through the driver to use it.

Not all drivers are written as local servers. It is possible that when it previously worked for you that you were using a different driver (like the Meade Generic driver). Local server drivers are .exe files. Drivers that are not local servers are .dll files.

Colin Dawson's Meade Generic driver is written as a local server and should support both CdC and BYN being connected at the same time. If you reverted to an older driver and had issues, then perhaps the older driver is not written as a local server. As an aside, I believe that Colin's driver is the only Meade Telescope driver that is currently being maintained, supported, and enhanced.  It is the only Meade telescope driver that is currently listed on the ASCOM web site. Be sure to use his latest release of the driver.

Here are my recommendations:

1) Use the latest Meade Generic driver and remove all others from your  computer.

2) After installing the driver and connecting the scope to the PC run the ASCOM Conform tool against the driver. It should pass all the tests without reporting any errors. If you get errors report them to Colin Dawson, the driver author. Conform will make sure that the tested driver correctly implements the ASCOM telescope interface, but there may be issues that it does not catch. These are still driver issues and fall into Colin's domain to diagnose and repair.

3) Test the driver with CDC. If it works, then add BYN into the mix, along with CdC.

If after the above steps, there are connection or slewing issues, talk to the driver author for help with troubleshooting the driver. He will likely ask for log files from the ASCOM interface layers and from the driver itself. These will help him to uncover and fix any issues in the driver.

Finally, if you are using a "local server" driver with multiple applications connected at the same time it is your responsibility to interract with the telescope in a responsible manner. For example, if you try to move the telescope from both applications at the same time, the results may be unexpected and could cause issues like the telescope impacting the pier or tripod. BE CAREFUL.

I hope that this helps.