I have an AVX and a Celestron skyportal WIFI. I am able to use this perfectly fine for aligning and use when using the "SkyPortal" version of Skysafari (on Android). When I use SkySafari 5 (on Android) It does not appear to be setting the time and location. It will not align correctly. It looks like it is not updating the positon or time in the mount. Is there a fix or work-around for this? I much prefer Skysafari 5 over SkyPortal.
Jamie
Jamie,
We are not aware of any problems with the AVX mount and Celestron Wi-Fi. How do you know the Time & Location are not being set? Note that you cannot check the hand controller for this as the Celestron Wi-Fi connection completely bypasses the hand controller. As you may or may not know you cannot use the hand controller when connecting via Celestron Wi-Fi. If yo have done an alignment with the HC, it will cause problems.
Hi Bill,
Well, I had to deduce the time issue. I was alternating between skyportal and skysafari. Skysafari would always point the telescope far off of the alignment star. Often too far to align. Skyportal would align just fine. So then I first set the correct time in the handset, reset the power, and then did the alignment with skysafari. The alignment went fine, just like skyportal. This leads me to believe that there is something wrong with setting the time in skysafari.
On a side note, I noticed that the option to set the time in skysafari is greyed out.
Jamie
The option to set the time in SkySafari is greyed out because it is non-optional. The Celestron Wi-Fi code requires you to set it.
Not sure why what you did would have an effect, but I'm glad it fixed it. This code was written mainly by Celestron and parts of it are a black box to us. My understanding is that the hand controller is totally not involved when you specify the Celestron Wi-Fi scope type. The code does query the mount for some parameters so perhaps there was some wonky state store in there that go cleared out.
I actually wouldn't call it fixed:) I'd call it a work-around, as I have to do this procedure every time. -- Also I believe that there have been times where the work-around did not work.
OH, so Celestron wrote that portion of the code in SkySafari? I've tried to get some support from Celestron on the issue and they directed me to just use their version of SkySafari (skyportal). I really prefer Skysafari 5 pro though since it has all the observing list features.
So, should Celestron be supporting SkySafari for this issue since it's their code?
Jamie
The lead engineer at Celestron has asked to to direct difficult Celestron Wi-Fi problems to Celestron support. So yes, they should be willing to deal with this.
It is certainly not a solution to revert to SkyPortal.
Thanks Bill, I'll try Celestron again.
Jamie
OH, one more thing. Can you confirm one way or another if it's OK to use the handset directions buttons while using the mobile app?
-- when I was working through this issue with Celestron they said that I should not use the handset at all if I'm using wifi. Not even just the direction buttons. The direction buttons on the mobile app are really difficult to use so I prefer to use the handset. I'm not sure where I got the information, but I was under the impression that it's OK to use the direction buttons on the handset while using the mobile app to align and seek objects.
Jamie
I was originally told it was OK to move the scope with the HC buttons, just not align using it. Later when I was using the HC buttons, I reported bug where the motion would stop every 10 seconds or so. I was then told to never use the HC. To be honest, I think you can use the HC to move the scope with the caveat that you can't move large distances without repressing the button occasionally.
Thanks, that makes sense. I was also using the HS since it worked so much better, and I didn't see any issues.
