Pier collision

Sequence Generator
1

Hey guys,

Recently I had a pier collision, at least partially my own fault for not setting up tracking limits in APCC. I’m posting this log because I don’t think SGP behaved in the manner that is expected.

I was using SGP to perform a meridian flip during a sequence, after having gone to bed for the night, something I’ve done many times before. This night, however, the pre-flip plate solve failed repeatedly and the mount eventually tracked itself into the pier. I believe this was caused by the recovery process trying for 90 minutes to recover the sequence even though the mount had crossed the meridian.

The docs state the following:

Note: The attempt to recover your sequence will end:

  • After 90 minutes have elapsed…
  • OR when the scope passes the meridian…
  • OR when the “end time”

My interpretation of this is that the recovery should have been aborted and the sequence end process invoked, as soon as the mount crossed the meridian, which would have resulted in my mount being parked with no pier collision. Instead I believe the recovery process tried to solve for 90 minutes, whilst the mount gleefully drove itself into the pier, before recovery finally gave up and parked my mount.

I haven’t yet had a chance to see if my mount is still operational but at least it managed to park itself (though it was off a little bit–not unexpected) so that suggests the (RA) motor is still operational to at least some extent.

sg_logfile_20181107190741.txt.zip (147.0 KB)

2

sorry to hear this. while i can’t comment about the SGP problem, it’s possible this has also happened to me as well. i’ve had the mount track into the pier even with APCC limits set up. my belief is that because i had told APCC to only ‘stop tracking’ when the limit was reached, something (perhaps PhD2) was able to wake up the mount by sending tracking commands after the limit was reached. so at least with SGP+PHD2 i think the best thing to do is tell APCC to park the mount when the limit is reached. that way i don’t think it would start tracking again unless something explicitly unparked the mount.

2 Likes
3

Thanks mate. Sorry to hear about your collision also. Great tip on setting up APCC to park the mount instead of just stopping tracking, thanks for that. I’ll make sure I configure APCC to park.