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SkySafari 5 Plus (iOS) | Celestron CGEM 'Align' SoftKey Crasher/Reset (Unresolved)

I have Sky Safari Plus on an iPhone 7Plus running IOS 11.2.2  I use it with a Celestron CGEM mount.  I have a TEC140ED refractor.   The system was working perfectly for about a year.

The last two times I have taken out the scope it goes through the normal process of asking to find 2 stars in the east and then 2 in the west. However, after 1 or 2 stars are aligned either it freezes up when I try to press the 'align' softkey, or it resets to the 'connecting...' prompt and then tells me to move the axes back to 0/0 and start again.  About once in 10-15 tries it might actually go all the way though and get to align success, but this could take 45 minutes or more.  Last night I tried for 75 minutes before giving up.

I do public star parties and this is a real headache. Any ideas?

Mark

markj57 at gmail.com

3 comments

  • 0
    Avatar
    Bill Tschumy

    Mark,

    Sorry you are having problems.  This sounds really strange.  Some questions:

    1. Are you running the new SkySafari 6 Plus or is this SkySafari 5?  

    2. If it is 5, can you think of anything else that might have changed?  Did you update the firmware in the hand controller?

    3. How are you connecting to the mount?  Is this Celestron Wi-Fi or are you connecting through the hand controller via something like SkyFi.

    You might need to collect a scope communication log file and send it to me for analysis.  But in reality, it doesn't sound like a software problem.  You could try rebooting your phone.

     

  • 0
    Avatar
    Markj57

    Hi Bill,

    Thanks for the quick reply.

    1) I am running SkySafari 5 PLUS, version 5.4.1.0

    2) no other updates to firmware on the mount (I don't use the hand controller at all).   

    3) I'm using Celestron WiFi

    I reboot my phone every morning.  Any other thoughts?

    Mark

  • 0
    Avatar
    Bill Tschumy

    I really don't have any solid ideas for what could be happening.  I haven't heard of anything like this before and we probably have 500 people using exactly the same setup as you have.

    1. You might try uninstalling SS5 and re-installing.  Perhaps there is something corrupted in its settings.

    2. You might try contacting Celestron.  They provide support for connecting via the Celestron Wi-Fi.  Maybe they have heard of something like this.

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