Thomas Rose

Hi Wojtek, I am currently writing my own observatory software and have gained a deeper insite to ASCOM programming over the years now. I purchased the DDM60 in 2016 and was very impressed by the precise mechanics of the mount. But since I am trying to integrate the DDM60 into my observatory (complete setup with mount, two cameras, auto-guider, focuser, filter wheel, Baader Planetarium's BACHES spectrometer, optical switch, dome), a task that can only be accomplished with ASCOM, my enthusiasm with the mount has dropped to zero. Today, ASCOM is THE standard for interfacing hardware in astronomy and even the cheapest mounts (in the 500 € range) from SkyWatcher and other vendors nicely fullfil the ASCOM standards, most of them even version Telescope-V3. Compared to them, it is an infamy what ASA offers their customers here, claiming to be a High-Tech company and therefore justifying exorbitant prices. Obviously, ASA has decided to "solve" the problems by ignoring the customer's complains (or has anybody received a positive feedback from ASA regarding fixing their AutoSlew's ASCOM interface?). I have decided to advice my Astronomy colleagues against purchasing ASA hardware at all, unless they are going to respond in a positive way. Other vendors in the same price class, like 10Micron, PlaneWave or Celestron, offer mounts of comparable precision with perfect ASCOM drivers and it is really fun to work with these. It seems that since ASA has more focused on super expensive observatory telescopes in the several 100 k€ class, they totally neglect servicing their "low cost" variants. The DDM60 is not even listed on their homepage anymore. There is no reason to blame NINA here. NINA's programmers simply assume that an ASCOM driver fullfils its standards (this is what standards are made for, right?), but when you do so, even the simplest and mandatory ASCOM commands don't work with AutoSlew. For instance, due to the standard, the driver MUST respond to the time /date request (asking for the current time and date on the mount) or to requests of the current RA / DEC coordinates. But these are simlpy not updated at all by AutoSlew. Instead, the driver responds with a time / date from 1979 and the RA/DEC coordinates are mostly not updated (sometimes they are for reasons I never figured out). In order to use the DDM60 in my observatory at all, I am only using the most elementary commands like slewing to a target. Because AutoSlew returns immediately from the slewing command (instead of waiting until the mount has finished the slew and stated tracking) and also because the Tracking property is always turned on, there is no way to figure out (via ASCOM), when the mount has reached the target position. Therefore, after initiating a slew command, I wait for 30 seconds until starting a camera exposure. This way I can mostly avoid corrupted first exposures. But when it comes to features like automatic meridian flips or other self-evident features, ASA's ASCOM driver simply sucks! You are then forced to operate the mount manually via AutoSlew, a no-go for automated observatories. Sorry, I know these comments are not really helping you here, since you have already purchased the DDM60, but I think we should become a little bit more aggressive here towards ASA. Nowadays, customer service is an important aspect for doing business in any field and ASA is such a negative example in this respect, in particular compared to the totally pleasant services of companies like PlaneWave, Celestron, 10Micron and others.