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Problems Aligning Celestron Evolution WiFi + StarSense (Solution: Update Your Mount And HC Firmware Using The Latest Celestron CFM Updater And Everything Should Work - Read On!)

 

Total frustration, please help!

History first:

2 night ago I was having complete success doing manual, three-star alignments with my Evolution WiFi using SkySafari 6 Pro, but couldn’t get close enough to target objects (at least 3-5 degrees off target). Tried numerous calibrations, nothing helped.

Celestron advised me to go to the Starsense HC and restore the Starsense Camera (i.e., reset AIS camera). Also, Celestron said that my trying to calibrate on Polaris was a problem.

Yesterday, I reset AIS Camera and also, for good measure, on the Starsense HC I restored defaults (don’t know if this was a mistake). After the restore, I reset the time zone to -5 (Eastern United States) and daylight savings. (Note: I didn’t do anything with the original Evo HC, should I have checked the time zone, etc. on that HC?)

Last night, I could not achieve a manual, three-star alignment (one exception is noted below). Typically, I would get two stars to align and then get a failure notice, i.e., “Alignment pointing error too large, please try another alignment.” I tried this both in Skysafari and Skyportal—same results. After numerous other attempts (perhaps 15 tries), Skysafari froze (wheel kept spinning). Then, went to Skyportal and somehow managed to get three of three stars aligned!!! I pressed “done.” After all this frustration, I decided to see if, in fact, I had finally achieved any kind of substantial alignment. I targeted Polaris on my iPad, hit Go-To, and wound up pointing more toward Cassiopeia rather than Polaris!!!

I simply can’t imagine what else to do….

Date Votes

199 comments

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    Conrad Sanders

    Bill,

    I had charged both my Evolution Mount and the SkyFI device before I went out last night.  The one red light was blinking so I assume it was charging.  Eventually after a few hours, the blinking light stopped and according to the documentation,  that means the SkyFi is fully charged.  I had the SkyFi attached to my mount and was having some difficulty getting a good alignment with the SS Hand Control but after 30 minutes, I good a good alignment, re-calibrate followed by a final alignment.  I then plugged in the SkyFi unit into my hand control and both lights started to blink at the same time and then both lights went dead.  I tried to power the device back on and the light would not come on even after holding the on/off button.  So I brought out my DB power pack which has an AC source and I plugged in the SkyFi and the charge light started to blink.  I was then able to use the SkyFi device for about 90 minutes using my power pack when I decided to quit for the evening.

    When I came in the house, I plugged in SkyFi  to be charged and the red light blinked for about 5 minutes then went out which means it was fully charged.  I know that my Ipad works the same way if it's out in the cold too long.  Isn't that just the way Lithium batteries work?

    When I go out again, I will check the percentage using the 10.0.0.1 from my browser.

    Is it possible that I have a bad unit?

     

     

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    Joseph Luciani

    Bill and Daniel,

    I'm re-posting this question hoping to get an opinion as to whether this is a SkySafari problem or a mount problem. While trying to zero in on calibration stars, the left slewing button (using my iPad) would create a kind of "hic-cup," i.e., it would begin to nudge the star a bit toward the center of my eyepiece and then the star would "snap" back to where it was (I couldn't get it centered). This happened over and over, every time. With this "hic-cup" I heard a noticeable clicking-like sound as the star snapped back. If I kept trying to center the star eventually the slew would jump 30 degrees or more. Any idea what's causing this?

     

    Joe 

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    Conrad Sanders

    Bill,

    I checked the SkyFI III device before I took it out and it was at 100%.  I left it outside with the scope about an hour and a half and when  re-checked the power, it was down to around 75%.  So I am not sure what happened the night before but I am impressed with the range of the device since it's much better than the built in WiFi on the Evolution mount.

    I will continue to check this thread for updates on the issue since I may want to use the internal WiFi at some time using Sky Safari on the Ipad.  I like to have multiple options since you never know what is going to fail next.  My next test will be with my laptop and I have tested it indoors using Starry Night, Stellarium and the COM2TCP program and it works great !

     

     

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    Joseph Luciani

    Conrad,

    You probably already know this, buy by changing to Access Point instead of Direct Connect on the mount you have a far better range than with the mount. My home WiFi has an amazing range (even though I haven't been able to test it lately with all that we've been going through.

     

    Joe

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    Conrad Sanders

    Joe,

    Yes I recall you stating that in the previous posts and I will keep that in mind when I am ready to try it. 

    I am kind of like you. Once I get something working,  I hate to change anything since I don't want to be in troubleshooting mode when I would rather be looking at the stars.  I did not have this problem for a year and when I took off my Star Sense Camera for the first time, I needed to re-calibrate my telescope and that's when my nightmare started.  I really don't know what introduced this problem, IOS upgrade or the Celestron bug (update to software).  I can tell you that I have not done any type of Star Sense Firmware upgrade since I had the unit.  I can't say for sure about the Evolution Mount since I did send in the mount to Celestron for repair unless they upgraded the firmware when it was out in LA.

     

  • 0
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    Joseph Luciani

    Conrad,

    Although our specifics are different, we've had similar frustrations. I'm also on my second mount from Celestron and like you, there was a time in the past where everything worked, I believe that was before upgrading to SkySafari 6 Pro. The problem I had the other night with the slew "sticking" was new, it just goes on and on. I am determined to see this to a happy conclusion whenever that will be. Daniel has instilled a feeling of optimism....so, for now I wait for the "fix"....FYI: I was just beginning to use my Revolution Imager with SkyCap software (image below) when all this happened. Like you, I wanted to be able to sit in the comfort of my living room and remotely view the skies (and take some deep sky images with SkyCap), unfortunately, that wasn't to be.

     

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    Conrad Sanders

    Joe,

    I don't want to veer off of the subject too much but it sounds like you are using a Meade Telescope since you said that you use SkyCap?  I was running SkySafari Plus and that's when I first noticed the issue when I had to re-calibrate my camera so I thought I would upgrade to SkySafari Pro and I had the same problem.  So I believe that I did have a stable Sky Safari Plus but as soon I had to perform a re-calibrate, I had the problem.  I did a initial calibrate over a year ago and that lasted me most of the year until I did it over again about a month ago.

    By the way, I did have the Revolution Imager but finally returned it because the power cable kept coming loose in back of the camera.  They sent me a replacement and it lasted for another two months and I had the same problem.  I believe the very cold weather in MN took a toll on the device. There were just too many cables and the hand control was too complicated.  Going to be getting a Hyperstar which will be a much easier solution.  We can take it offline if you would like to contact me directly.

  • 0
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    Joseph Luciani

    Conrad,

    I'm using a Celestron, Evolution 8. When all this gets settled and we are both in business trying to do some imaging I'd like to have direct contact. I was introduced to SkyCap through my purchase of Revolution Imager (I guess they've merged resources). Haven't had that many opportunities to use the RI, so I don't know if my cables will wind up becoming loose. And yes, on the rare occasions when I was able to get three stars aligned and calibrate, I was never (I'm referring to our recent problems) able to achieve the required re-alignment. I suspect this is all the same problem that Daniel's working on. 

     

    Joe

     

     

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    Joseph Luciani

    Bill & Daniel,

    Celestron wrote that my problem with the "snapping" back while trying to center a star in my eyepiece is a backlash problem. He said there were settings in the hand controller and in the app. I cannot find any "backlash" options in the app (Celestron said that in the app I would go to: Settings>Telescope Control>Backlash, etc.). Are there such settings and do you agree that this is probably my problem?

     

    Thanks,

    Joe

     

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    Joseph Luciani

    Daniel & Bill,

    To be clear, I deleted SkySafari and reloaded it. The calibration has returned to 640-480 (as opposed to my field test calibration of -6239  -2065). Does this mean the the app needs to remain a 640-480 and the problem is that the calibration "drifts" to these other crazy calibration numbers? Should the app always read 640  480?

    Any news as to when to expect the 'fix?'

    Joe

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    Joseph Luciani

    Does anyone have any news as to when the update will be released from Celestron? I was told it would be by the end of this month (today).

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    Bill Tschumy

    Celestron is beta testing the changes now.

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    Joseph Luciani

    Encouraging news, thanks Bill, appreciate the feedback.

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    Daniel Goodwin

    We were aiming for end of next week, but weather in LA is and will be cloudy and raining through next week. So as soon as the weather clears, we will extensively test it under the stars, and then release. I will let you all know when that happens.

    -Daniel

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    Conrad Sanders

    So if Celestron is making the fixes to Sky Portal, how does this fix get applied to Sky Safari Plus or Pro since it's a Simulation Curriculum product(s)?

    Are we also going to need to upgrade the Star Sense firmware to fix this problem?

     

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    Bill Tschumy

    We make the SkyPortal app for Celestron.  There is only one code base that we build SkyPortal and SkySafari from.  The fix will automatically happen in both.

    I don't believe this will require any firmware update.

     

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    Conrad Sanders

    So if the bug is in the app, what is Daniel's role at Celestron?  Test the fix?

     

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    Bill Tschumy

    No, he works on some of the Celestron code that is in the app.  It requires some proprietary Celestron knowledge.  This is why no other app can talk to Celestron Wi-Fi mounts.

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    Conrad Sanders

    Bill,

    Thanks for this information since it helps me better understand the relationship between your company and Celestron and who is responsible for which part of the code.

    I will continue to monitor this thread.  My interest is only in Sky Safari since I purchased both the Plus and Pro versions.

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    Doranmd3


    I would like to thank everyone engaged in this issue. I believe I have the same issue. I have a CGEMII mount, Celestron Wifi module, StarSense and use SkySafari Plus on my IPad. My system has been working fine for the past year. In November 2018 I decided I wanted better Polar Alignment and the only way for me was through the HC. The HC auto and polar align has been working fine. But when I tried to go back to SkySafari it gave me " Alignment pointing error too large." My numbers in SkySafari under Setup and Control are 4506, 5872. I have deleted the file recommended here and when I went back in the numbers have returned to 640, 480. I hope to get out early next week and test SkySafari can do an alignment for me. My goal is to use the HC for polar alignment than be able to go back to SkySafari. If I can be of any help please let me know.

    Mark Doran

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    Joseph Luciani

    Mark,

    Guess you’re now an official “pointing error too large” club member. I never could find the file to delete, but re-loading SkySafari restored my 640,480 calibration....but, that was  just for the first StarSense calibration, subsequent calibrations yielded numbers similar to those you cited. It seems that the proper calibration could not be maintained. This ‘bug’ is what Daniel has been working on at Celestron. From everything I’ve gathered, he, Daniel, is currently beta testing a “fix” in L.A.  I haven’t tried to observe and will continue to wait for the fix to this calibration issue. 

    Joe

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    Trevor Green

    Tonight I had teh same error occur as others have mentioned “pointing error too large” so i re started realigned again again and again with the same result what i did in teh end was not to restart with connect and align but just to connect (I use he app via Celestron WiFi Dongle on a AVX Mount ) and it showed the position it failed and my alignment was actually fine.... from there i just kept using the app all night and it was fine . I re tested this a few times when i finished imaging  and each time i got an aligmnet error mesage but if i chose just to connect it worked and was slewing to correct position perfectly

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    Trevor Green

    I did not record my calibration data  but from memory it was something about 32 1268

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    Joseph Luciani

    Trevor,

    Not sure I follow. I understand you gave up trying "connect and align," but then you said you had success simply by using "connect." If this is correct, how did you align? Were you using StarSense? Also, not sure what you meant by, "...it showed the position it failed..." Could you explain this a bit further.

    Thanks for perhaps a way to use SkySafari while Daniel works on the testing.

    Joe

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    Conrad Sanders

    I might of mentioned this before but my work around is a good solution using the SkyFI III WIFi device which allows me to continue to use Sky Safari without performing the Star Sense alignment on the application but rather use the hand control fo alignment.

    My only complaint is that is doesn’t see to tolerate the cold weather very well.  As soon as I bring it back in the house and let it warm up a few minutes, then I can turn it back on.  

     

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    Doranmd3

    Well I got out last night for a few hours and tested my system and was successful. I first tried SkySafari Plus without HC connected. Auto align and SS calibration worked fine. My numbers in "Setup and Control" ended up being 862, 424. I returned my system to its home position and powered down. Connected the HC. Powered back up and performed with the HC an Auto align, SS calibration and a Polar align and everything performed successfully with HC. I did not try connecting SkySafari with power on after the alignment. I returned the system to its home position and powered down. With leaving the HC connected I powered back up and connected my SkySafari to the system and performed an Auto align successfully. I believe where I had first got into this issue was going from HC to SkySafari without powering down. Bottom line deleting the "Celestron.dat" file is a work around for me if I get into this issue again. I look forward to a resolution that will allow me to easily change between the two. Now Trevor had an idea that I haven't tried which might be a quick work around if this issue shows again. My system would only give me the error at the very end of the alignment. As Trevor stated I could have just accept the error, let it take me out and just do a connection. My system may have worked. I will try if opportunity arrives.

    Mark.

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    Conrad Sanders

    Mark,

     

    What I really don’t understand about this problem is it seems to be a hit or miss for some users.  I deleted the Celestron.dat file and then would do a fresh SS auto alignment and I would get the error.  I would go back and look at the Celestron.dat file and the bad values would be in there again.

    So I gave up and will wait for the fix.

    I did not try Trevor’s suggestion  about the igorning the error and just connecting.

     

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    Joseph Luciani

    Conrad,

    I decided weeks ago to stop frustrating myself with all this, obviously there's a bug that needs to be fixed. In the meantime it just seems futile to keep trying to work around this issue...hopefully the fix will be soon as the weather begins to make observing more tolerable.

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    Bill Tschumy

    Celestron has just released a new version of SkyPortal on iOS (version 3.1.0.9067) that has the supposed fix to this problem.  Can some of you on iOS download it and see if your problem has gone away.  We would like to verify it in SkyPortal before releasing it in SkySafari.

    Dan at Celestron also made the following comment:

    Also, I did find a firmware bug in the Evolution mount which negatively affects communication with StarSense through the WiFi. This only effects Evolution mounts with our newer WiFi modules in them, which you can determine by the WiFi SSID having the following signature: Celestron-xxx, where xxx is THREE hex characters. We have a fix in order and will be releasing that soon as well.

    He said that this problem might affect Evolution users so they might still have an issue with StarSense alignment with Celestron Wi-Fi.

    If one or more of you could try this with SkyPortal, we would like to know if the problem is gone.

     

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    Joseph Luciani

    Bill,

    FANTASTIC!!!! Can't wait for clear skies. Couple of things. In all of my trial-and-error experimenting, Celestron sent me a new WiFi (Celestron xxx). I disconnected my 2016 mount to use the new module. Should I keep using the new module to test Skyportal? Also, since the new WiFi has a bug, would I be better off in the long run to go back to my old WiFi (i.e., is there any inherent value going forward to using the plug-in module which is prone to breaking quite easily?) Saying this differently, after all the bugs are fixed, is there any advantage to using the new WiFi over the mount's original WiFi? 

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