Have had some issues when using SkyFi 3 with my USB Starsense hand control. Using SkySafari 5 Pro. I do the alignment with my Starsense HC, no problem. I then, typically use my iPad Mini to control my scope via SkyFi 3 and seems to work okay but my gotos are usually off a little. If I use my StarSense HC, gotos are typically dead on. After I use the HC a time or two, it says that I need to align. I can still do gotos with the iPad but they are off a little. As long as I keep the SkyFi disconnected, the HC works perfectly. I just upgraded the firmware from 1.3.3 to 1.3.4, but may be a few days before I get a chance to see how that works. Does anyone have any input on tis ?
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40 comments
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Garry Snow AVX mount
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Bill Tschumy Garry,
It is not clear to me why the GoTos using the HC would be more accurate than with SkySafari. All we do is tell the HC to Go TO the coordinates of the object. How far off would you say the GoTo is?
I'm also not familiar with the HC telling you that you need to align. When does this happen?
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Garry Snow They are typically within the frame. It acts like the two are a little out of sync. The deal with the HC happens every time I connect the SkyFi. Never happens as long as I don't connect the SkyFi. Started a few months ago when I had an issue with my old StarSense. I was running an earlier version of your SkyFi, with RS-232 connection. Celestron upgraded to the newer StarSense with USB connection, therefore I had to update to SkyFi 3 . This was about 6 months ago. I hooked it all up , used it for a few nights, dealing with the issues that I've mentioned. Now, until last Sunday night, I had not been in my observatory for 6 months. Went out, opened it all up, SkyFi not connected, took mount out of hibernation, goto was dead on, even after sitting for 6 months. Did not try the SkyFi, just brought it in and did the firmware update last night. Will probably be a day or two before I get a chance to go back out.
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Bill Tschumy Possibly Celestron changed the epoch (J2000 vs JNow) in which we have to specify the coordinates. But we haven't heard this from anyone else. However, that would account for a GoTo being slightly off. I will ask our Celestron engineer if anything changed.
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Bill Tschumy We have identified a bug where we are indeed using J2000 coordinates with the StarSense hand controller when we should be using JNow. That is most likely the reason your GoTos are slightly off, but still in the FOV. We will get this fixed in our next update, probably in a couple of weeks. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
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Garry Snow Possible that is what is causing the HC to display that it needs aligned ?
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Bill Tschumy I wouldn't think so but I have never seen that message before and don't know what causes it. You aren't referring to the message saying the camera needs to be calibrated are you?
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Garry Snow No sir, mount needs to be aligned.
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Bill Tschumy I would ask Celestron what that means. I have no idea.
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Woody I've noticed the same thing regarding GOTOs being slightly different lately. And I don't think it used to be this way. As I recall, last year GOTOs were identical. Now they're not. I was figuring some kind of very slight time difference between my tablet running SkySafari and the mount getting its time reference from GPS and then StarSense after alignment. But I suspect a difference between J2000 and JNow might result in the same slight difference.
Woody
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Garry Snow Celestron says that since it only happens when I'm connected to SkyFi, that there must be some miscommunication issue, possibly confusing the StarSense HC into thinking there was an alignment error, hence giving me the message to align. That was months ago. Like I mentioned, unfortunately, I have not been in my observatory for months until this past Sunday. Hoping to remedy that very soon. Got fired up after attending my first meeting with the CTAS for a Star-B-Que at the Meyer Observatory last Saturday night near Clifton, Tx. Been member for about 4 years. That was my first attendance.
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Bill Tschumy We have lots of customers using SkySafari and SkyFi with the StarSense HC. You are the first to report anything like this. I will ask our contact at Celestron if he has any ideas.
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Bill Tschumy Woody,
The bug we found has been there ever since we put support in for the StarSense HC. It is a couple of years old.
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Garry Snow I'll do my best to get out there tonight and see what it does with the latest firmware, just for the hell of it.
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Bill Tschumy Gary,
Here is what the Celestron engineer says:
"Hmm interesting. Sounds like a bug in the StarSense hand-control. The message should appear if a goto command was issued but the mount was not aligned. Since the gotos are technically working, then that would mean to me that this is simply an erroneous message being displayed by the hand-controller.
I'll look into it."He would also like you to give the exact message you are seeing on the HC.
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Garry Snow Didn't get a chance to go back out last night. I sent entire mount, StarSense, and SkyFi to Celestron last Winter. They sent it back with the new StarSense. Did the same thing with SkyFi attached after I got it back. Again, will try to get out tonight and take it through it's paces and see what happens.
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Garry Snow Finally, I'm out in my observatory. Have not powered up the AVX mount. SkyFi 3 power is off, I plug the USB plug from the SkyFi into the StarSense HC, the HC powers up and begins countdown for validation process. That just doesn't seem normal to me. Is this okay or is there a problem, or am I doing something wrong ?
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Garry Snow Okay, took mount out of hibernation.Did a couple of gotos, perfect. Powered p SkyFi, connected on iPad, went to Sky Safari 5 Pro, connected telescope, slewed to moon. Moon was barely in frame but started moving from lower left of frame to upper right. Went back to HC, was still on moon from earlier. Put moon in center of frame then started moving toward upper right hand corner of frame. Checked HC to see about tracking rate and it was displaying " Starsense Ready.... Press align to select and begin alignment. " I went to Menu and checked tracking. It shows disabled. I'm still able to do gotos from the HC but tracking may or may not be disabled. What the hell is going on ? pretty frustrating. I get very little time to get out here and I'd just as soon not be having to jack with equipment issues.
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Garry Snow Disconnect SkyFi, no problem. But I do have to do new alignment after this occurs to clear message from HC screen.
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Bill Tschumy Gary,
Sorry you are having problems.
The USB port on the SkyFi 3 does provide power so it is not unusual for the HC to power up when the SkyFi 3 is plugged in. This should not be a problem.
With regard to the tracking problem, I need more detail.
1. If you align the mount using StarSense (or bring it out of hibernation), is tracking on then?
2. Please try to figure out exactly what turns tracking off. If it after connecting? After a GoTo? After using the on-screen slew buttons?
3. Since you refer to the Moon, do you have the mount set to do lunar tracking or is it always sidereal?
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Bill Tschumy Also, as I asked above. The Celestron engineer "would also like you to give the exact message you are seeing on the HC."
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Garry Snow I included what the HC message is in my next to last post, " StarSense Ready.... Press align to select and begin alignment. ". Just like you'd turned the mount on after powering down without hibernating the mount. Answer to first question, if not using SkyFi, comes out of hibernation and does pinpoint Gotos, as I mentioned in previous post. Last night, after getting the message on the HC that I mentioned, I sent the mount to home which it did just fine but when trying to hibernate the mount, I get a HC message stating that the mount must be aligned in order to hibernate the mount. Doesn't do that if I haven't connected the SkyFi. Answer to second question, the issues with the StarSense HC seem to occur after doing a Goto from the iPad through SkyFi. Answer to third question, issue occurred last night while tracking was set on Lunar, but it does also occur when doing deep sky on sidereal tracking. Never tried it on solar, but tracking setting doesn't seem to matter.
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Bill Tschumy Gary,
I've been working with Celestron trying to figure out why your StarSense alignment is getting lost. Apparently when we send the time & location to the StarSense HC, this invalidates the alignment mode. This doesn't happen with non-StarSense alignments. The simple solution is to turn this option off in the Scope Setup settings. Try that and see if your problems go away.
This also probably explains why the mount stops tracking. An Alt/Az mount cannot track without being aligned so it knows where it is pointing in the sky.
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Garry Snow Turn off which option ? I'm also running SkySync, but it does the same thing whether that's connected or not.
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Bill Tschumy In SkySafari's Telescope Setup settings, turn off "Set Time & Location"
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Garry Snow Cool, totally misunderstood you. Thanks. Think that will work ? I'll do my best to give it a go tonight.
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Bill Tschumy Yes, I'm pretty sure this is the issue. I'm surprised this has not come up for us before.
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Garry Snow Just the way my deals seem to work. Look forward to trying it tonight. Will let you know.
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Garry Snow Cool. That took care of that. When y'all goto issue fixed, I'll be walking tall. Thanks.
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Bill Tschumy We have the GoTo issue fixed internally. We hope to push a new release in a week or two.
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