Has anyone been able to get a full sequence plate solve to work with a LX600. By this I mean slew to target, plate solve then move to the final solution. Using the universal Meade ascom driver the scope slews to the general area, plate solves the location successfully, but the scope never moves to the final position. Any work arounds? My goto’s are really pretty good with High Precision pointing and Starlock on…the target is generally in the camera field of view, but I want the ability to take multiple nights worth of data. Tried turning both the starlock and high precision pointing off and got the same results…no final movement of the scope to the final position.
I know this used to work with the LX200gps drivers, but Meade changed the firmware number with the lx600/850 to 1.1.g and the old drivers error out saying the firmware is out of date.
Thanks,
John
I don’t know the LX600 so I’m taking a stab at this. If by “high precision” you mean you are using some sort of sky model that won’t work with the way SGP does it. SGP does a plate solve and then does a sync on that location then does a slew to the final location. SGP works best with a fairly dumb alignment (e.g. a one star alignment). SGP is assuming that the sync will correct the location in the local area and the slew will be a small movement to the final location. Sky models don’t work with that approach and sometimes the sync is ignored.
Thanks for the reply! The way the high precision point works is with the starlock. Upon a goto the scope will slew to a bright star in it’s database near your target. Starlock will then engage it’s two cameras and center the star and sync that location. Scope will then continue on to the target. I know I have to turn off the High Precision part, and disengage starlock until plate solve is complete. My problem is that under SGP the scope will slew to the target area, plate solve by taking a picture and comparing it to the catalog. Does this just fine, gets a solution but scope will never move the final bit to complete the solution. I believe it to be the fault of the driver we are stuck using not doing a sync update or center here function. I can get the scope to slew to position pretty accurately with the starlock and high precision point…the target is almost always in the camera sensor, but I wanted to be able to plate solve so I could take multiple nights worth of data. If Meade had left the firmware numbering scheme the same the old LX200gps driver would have worked (pretty sure), but they changed to 1.1.g for the starlock version. Now the old driver errors out saying the firmware in the LX600 is out of date., and the new one isn’t fully implemented. Really frustrating!. Meade hasn’t shown the slightest interest in getting an updated driver into the field at all. May decide to sell the scope and go with a Celestron. At least those mounts can plate solve.
Thanks for listening,
John
