Has anyone achieved SGP mount control of the Celestron CGX? I hear various comments about connection via the hand controller port, but Celestron claims this will not work on the CGX and that it is to be used only for hand controller firmware upgrades. Celestron suggest that the mount USB port (on the mount body) should be used, as it is for the Celestron PWI mount control software. So how do I use SGP with the CGX?
I have used SGP on my CGX via the hand controller. I haven’t been out in a few months, but tested the control with 3.0.1 at home and everything worked. I noted one issue with the control, but I shut down SGP, rebooted and everything worked properly. I’ve never been able to repeat that anomaly.
glend, I run a CGX-L (and before that a CGX), under full SGPro control with the laptop-to-mount link via the handset USB with no problems. There may be some confusion here. The USB port on the mount itself is only for use with dedicated Celestron software and the port will not work with SGPro. The handset USB is specifically designed for use with third-party software such as SGPro (while also being used for handset maintenance). This is not an ideal setup because in fact what you are doing (when running the mount from SGPro/Handset port) is controlling the handset which is then controlling the mount. The has been a lot of chatter on this and various rumours that Celestron will fix things so that third-party software can talk to the mount direct, but I haven’t seen any reports of this actually having been done. So you need to use the handset port, and you need the Celestron CGX ASCOM driver which works just fine with SGPro.
Ok guys thanks for that clarification. My CGX is on a pier in my observatory and precisely aligned. Do i need to re-align after connecting SGP or will the “Last Alignment” in the hand controller still be valid? In other words, is the hand control still “present” in provding that aspect of control?
I have this situation. I use ‘quick align’ every time. This assumes that the clock is accurate and that you have previously aligned the mount. My remaining problem then is that a pier flip does not put it exactly on target, but SGP caters for this when you include the ‘centre on accurately’ option. It does this check after a pier flip.
Lawrence Harris
I’m pier-mounted also. I use ‘last alignment’ and it seems to work fine every time. I then slew to target which usually gets me to within about 500 px and then the first ‘centre now’ gets me to within 20 px. I’ve found the meridian flip gets to within 100 px and then 20 px on centre on.
I have a CGX-L its on the original tripod but remains in place with a 365 cover.
My start up is I never use wake, let it move to the switch, choose quick align, then slew to a random part of the sky and to a plate solve and synch.
Takes about maybe 3 minutes after that it usually will slew to within a few hundred pixels of the next target and resolves after at most two tries.
I do the same using the quick align feature in the NexStar+ HC. I think one important thing to remember, for this to work one needs to be somewhat polar aligned. I found, and I’m sure it will depend on your mount, if your PE is within about 10 arc-minutes or under this seems to work very well with simply doing a quick align and solve and synch. it is very quick.
Mark