BYEOS does not seem to support simultaneous ASCOM telescope and focuser although ASCOM driver does.

[StarGrazer]

Unless I'm doing something wrong, it appears BYEOS (trial version) imposes a restriction on connecting to both an ASCOM telescope and focuser simultaneously, when they share the same COM port. However, the ASCOM driver to which I refer here, is designed specifically for Meade AutoStar I platforms that by design, use a single serial port to control both the telescope and a motorized focuser. It would be nice to use say, Stellarium for slewing to an object of interest (the GoTo function), then disconnect Stellarium from the scope, move over to BYEOS and connect both the telescope and focuser during the "frame and focus" process to continue the astro-photo shoot.

I have confirmed that, BYEOS can control both the ASCOM telescope and ASCOM focuser provided by the ASCOM driver, however I am forced to use those features in a mutually excusive manner, which seems to be an unnecessary restriction in BYEOS.

The specific ASCOM driver I am referring to is entitled "Meade LX200 Classic and Autostar I (combined telescope/focuser, 5.0.4)" found here: https://ascom-standards.org/Downloads/FocuserDrivers.htm

If this is a simple fix (such as just removing an unnecessary restriction), is it possible to issue a patch to the latest version rather than having to await the next BYEOS formal release?

Thanks for your consideration here...

[StarGrazer]

Voila! I believe I have discovered the cause of the issue and it appears to be me!!

First, I checked the Weather Provider settings and they appeared to be set as recommended already. I then successfully connected to my camera and then proceeded to successfully connect to the telescope and then the focuser. All were successful!

I then proceeded to attempt to discover the situation that caused the original problem and found that I was disconnecting Stellarium from within Stellarium and not via Stellarium Scope companion app. Once I disconnected from the scope within Stellarium Scope after slewing the scope using a "GoTo object" operation within Stellarium, I then (with BYE running the whole time) reconnected BYE to both the telescope and focuser! :-)

So it seems it was a simple case of my having to go through the trials and tribulations of getting all this to play nice together. And, as a side note, WITHOUT needing to invoke a POTH (Plain Old Telescope Hub) configuration as suggested by s3igell above.

Thanks to all for your support and assistance in working through this. I have currently only been running these tests during daylight hours and while inside. Now that I'm confident I have a configuration that apparently works, I will take it outside for a test drive at first opportunity and attempt an astro-photo shoot.

Stay tuned for those results... Thanks again to all!!

[astroman133]

If the driver is implemented correctly then it should not matter to BYE that both devices use the same driver. It should not know that this is how they work. It could be a limitation of the driver. The driver's ReadMe file says that it supports telescope and focuser connections from multiple simultaneous clients. No criticism of the authors of the Meade drivers that are available via the ASCOM site, but some of them have been abandoned by their authors and allowed to die on the site. None of the experienced driver authors who frequent the ASCOM-Talk Yahoo group see enough benefit to spending the time to write a full featured driver when Meade appears to not care.

Also, the Meade focuser is a relative focuser. This means that the focuser does not have a position or a step size. This could be something that BYE does not expect.

What about controlling the telescope from Stellarium Scope/Stellarium and the focuser from BYE?

[StarGrazer]

Hi Rick,

Thanks for the response. I totally agree that, were that driver implemented correctly, it should create an isolation layer between the applications (like BYEOS & Stellarium etc.) and the COM port (hardware layer device) used to communicate to both the telescope positioning and focuser functions of the AutoStar I platform.

The symptoms I'm seeing in BYEOS are, after performing a slew/GoTo with Stellarium and subsequently disconnecting Stellarium from the telescope, I am able to successfully connect to either the focuser or the telescope. Once I'm successfully connected to say the telescope within BYEOS and I then try to connect to the focuser also within BYEOS, I receive a message indicating the COM port is in use.

That leads me to believe BYEOS is bypassing the ASCOM driver layer and communicating directly with the COM port. Of course if it were trying to do that, it will find the device in use. Or it is possible that BYEOS has a pre-check that notes the telescope and focuser share the COM port resource and doesn't even try to connect.

In any case, and as much as I appreciate your response, it still seems speculative to me since there are quite a few unknowns here for me as a user. I was hoping Guylain or someone else with source code access might have a look at it in this area to see if there truly is a conflict or if there is an inherent expectation in BYEOS that simultaneous use of telescope an focuser functions is normally not possible and therefore, that assumption is programmed in... ???

In any case, you are also correct in that, any corrective action in BYEOS to eliminate this would AT BEST result in an improvement that can only be classified as a "convenience feature" since it is in fact possible to control the scope from Stellarium and the focuser from BYEOS. However, I remain hopeful this is a simple resolution that would result in a huge gain in the convenience factor... :-)

 

[astroman133]

I'll let Guylain reply  to this, but based on my experience writing ASCOM client applications and drivers,  I can pretty much guarantee that 1) BYE does not bypass ASCOM to talk directly to the port and 2) it most likely does not even know that the driver uses a COM port or which port or ports it uses. The whole purpose of ASCOM is to shield applications from those driver details.

If I had a compatible mount I could confirm this with an app that I wrote to control my telescope and focuser. Alas, I don't own any Meade equipment.

[admin]

BYE does not, absolutely not, bypass ASCOM to communicate with the mount of focuser directly.  ASCOM is used exclusively to establish the communication with the mount and focuser.

Regards,

[StarGrazer]

Thanks Guylain for providing clarification. However, I am still at a loss as to why I am able to connect Stellarium to my telescope using the aforementioned ASCOM driver while simultaneously connecting BYE to the ASCOM focuser of that driver, but can't seem to get BYE to connect to both simultaneously with BYE as the only active ASCOM client app running. In that case, BYE always logs a COM port in use type error which, as you say, should not be the case given BYE does not violate the ASCOM driver layer to access the serial port directly.

Any ideas as to why that error is incurred (and logged in the BYE log)?

Thanks in advance for any additional insights you may share.

[s3igell]

Since you are using ASCOM, try adding POTH into the mix.  POTH is specifically designed to allow Multiple Connections to the same ASCOM Port.  If your configuration works with POTH, then that indicates that despite any Intentions by MEADE, they have a problem with their Multi-Port Implementation.

[admin]

This could be related to an old issue that was rehashed recently with the -automatic- weather provider which may scan (and lock) some com ports - this is not ASCOM related per say.

Go to Settings and set the "Weather Provider" to blank/none, restart BYE, and try again.

[admin]

5 hours ago, StarGrazer said:

Voila! I believe I have discovered the cause of the issue and it appears to be me!!

First, I checked the Weather Provider settings and they appeared to be set as recommended already. I then successfully connected to my camera and then proceeded to successfully connect to the telescope and then the focuser. All were successful!

I then proceeded to attempt to discover the situation that caused the original problem and found that I was disconnecting Stellarium from within Stellarium and not via Stellarium Scope companion app. Once I disconnected from the scope within Stellarium Scope after slewing the scope using a "GoTo object" operation within Stellarium, I then (with BYE running the whole time) reconnected BYE to both the telescope and focuser! ?

So it seems it was a simple case of my having to go through the trials and tribulations of getting all this to play nice together. And, as a side note, WITHOUT needing to invoke a POTH (Plain Old Telescope Hub) configuration as suggested by s3igell above.

Thanks to all for your support and assistance in working through this. I have currently only been running these tests during daylight hours and while inside. Now that I'm confident I have a configuration that apparently works, I will take it outside for a test drive at first opportunity and attempt an astro-photo shoot.

Stay tuned for those results... Thanks again to all!!

Glad you sorted it out.