Rotator sync out of plate solving PA

Voyager Feature Requests
1

Hello,

any chance to add something in dragscript to sync rotator with the angle given by a plate solve? That can be a nice solution for those without an observatory and in need of removing the whole imaging train every few nights.

Or am I missing something and that’s already possible in Voyager/Dragscript?

Thanks
Miguel

2

No sync for rotator in onthefly or in dragscript.
This is on the todo list but low priority.
I dont have an observatory but also i dont have a rotator and never feel the need to do this, usually a good reference point on focuser do the job perfectly, for your info.

All the best
Leonardo

3

Leo thanks for the feedback. I’ll be waiting for a future implementation. Meanwhile I’ll use the more manual ways of addressing it

Miguel

4

Hello.
It’s a good thing not only for fixed observatories.
I come from a three nights star party, and each night I mount and unmount all the stuff.
And I had differences of almost 6° between days.
It should be great if sequence or dragscript could sync the rotator. Just taking a picture, solve it and sync the rotator angle in Ascom.

Thank you for your work!
Fernando

5

Hi,

I have a rotator, too, and this would allow much better automation for framing. With the Moonlite CSL focuser I have, it is not possible to rotate without using the motor rotator. So far, I sync in another software. I would appreciate the work.

6

Any chance we can implement this? I also agree we feel the needs of this feature… Would appreciate if Voyager team can make it happen.

7

Will do for the next daily build of Voyager.
We are working hard on new interesting features but will found time for this.

All the best
Leonardo

1 Like
8

Thanks a lot Leonardo! That’s great to know! Looking forward to the next daily build!

Maybe a relevant question(s):
Currently if I create a framing in Virtual FoV, issue a “precise GoTo”, does it control the rotator to frame with exact the same PA as I draw, or it only controls the GoTo to the specified coordinate?
How about creating a sequence from RoboClip which includes PA info? Once a sequence is started, does the initial pointing-to include rotating the rotator to the desired angle?

Thanks,
Yizhou

9

You will found a dragscript block with plate solve and rotator adjust.

All the best
Leonardo

10

Thanks Lernardo. I understand you can request to rotate to specific angle in DragScript, but really I hope the process can be streamlined by integrating the rotating part into the sequence handling. The RoboClip target is generated with a PA associated to the framing, so hopefully it’s not too much effort to just take that value and commande the rotation.

Currently if creating a Mosaic with adjusted tile rotation, does it automatically rotate when starting imaging each tile, or do we need to insert a rotation dragscript block before each tile (can we even do that?)?

Really appreciate the effort on this!

Thanks,
Yizhou

11

You are right but in sequence rotator is not managed, you can manage now out of sequence in DragScript before start sequence, I will add in DragScript also the plate solving with rotator sync. But for include in Sequence there are a lot of things to think about… in dragscript is better also for the flat otherwise each time you start the sequence you have the rotator try to sync the position , better to rotate out of sequence.

Rotator is something really dificult for normal AP , you must have a perfect telescope with perfect collimation and perfect squaring of sensor and perfect squaring of focuser axis … so better to move so min times possible !

Mosaic with rotating for each tile is a nightmare for the flat you will need , sure you want this ? Isnt better to have more overlapping and not rotating ?

Obvius you are free to do how you like but again for mosaic rotator isnt managed internally.
But we will arrive on this goal. Think about to create a dragscript for the mosaic with rotator block between sequence if you want to do the mosaic with tiles adjustment.

All the best
Leonardo

12

During development i see about ASCOM rotator (actually Voyager manage only ASCOM rotator) that the only version 3 of rotator interface (only available in ascom 6.5) support Sync. Version 2 (99.9% used by all of us) not have sync capability, so Voyager will must provide internal offset and save it in profile when you will use the sync action in Voyager and apply in background at position reported in GUI.

Third way is to sync outside Voyager in the driver if support this kind of task.

If you have ASCOM 6.5 not mean you have sync inside driver, you must check with driver developers of your rotator if they have release an ASCOM driver with interface version 3 that support sync.

Just write this to inform you all have request the feature about situation and strategy of Voyager about sync.

If someone want to add more i’m just writing code for this … thank you

13