MichiP Posted December 22, 2023 Report Share Posted December 22, 2023 Hi, I'd like to hear your opinion on which program I should choose to have my observatory fully automated. The following equipment must be supported: ASA DDM 85XL on a bend pier RC 16 180mm APO 2 x ZWO ASI 2600mm + Filter wheel Astrometric's DomeProU Controllers (Dome control) Alnitak Cover opener Microtouch Controller Primaluce Essato Focusser AAG Cloudwatcher One critical point is that the dome needs a certain position to open and close the shutter. What should I consider? Any concerns? Thank you Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichiP Posted December 22, 2023 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2023 I missed mentioning CCD Autopilot. But to be honest, I'm not happy with it. It is crashing so often that I would not rely on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnakChan Posted December 24, 2023 Report Share Posted December 24, 2023 Since you're limiting the topic N.I.N.A./SGP/CCD AutoPilot over ASA's own Sequence then personally I'm biased toward N.I.N.A. as I had been using it since my pre-DDM days. But IMHO ASA's native integration with other apps for legacy ASA mounts has lots of room for improvement, I'd say using N.I.N.A. with Photon's ASA Plug-in for. N.I.N.A. is a must. More info can be found here (Sorry, a bit of a cross-post). Photon's ASA Plug-In has been a heavenly sent gift that modernises legacy DDM's IMO. Once you are with N.I.N.A. then you can have all the other ASCOM drivers with it. Since N.I.N.A. is somewhat "freeware", there's no harm in trying it. I've not used SGP can can't comment on it, however I do know quite a lot of former SGP users (but not ASA owners) that have switched to N.I.N.A. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichiP Posted December 27, 2023 Author Report Share Posted December 27, 2023 I would not limit it to those three programs, but I think these are the most used ones. I'm currently testing N.I.N.A. next to SGP, but I don't see a huge difference between them. Photon's ASA plug-in is definitely a huge plus for N.I.N.A. 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnakChan Posted December 28, 2023 Report Share Posted December 28, 2023 (edited) 23 hours ago, MichiP said: I would not limit it to those three programs, but I think these are the most used ones. I'm currently testing N.I.N.A. next to SGP, but I don't see a huge difference between them. Photon's ASA plug-in is definitely a huge plus for N.I.N.A. 🙂 I think it's a matter of taste and preferences. Not necessarily such a clear cut case of "one is better than the other". However N.I.N.A. does seem to have a constant upgrade/improvement with lots of various plug-in support. Through the plug-ins, I find N.I.N.A. to be quite feature rich. Aside from 3PPA (polar alignment), I use the aberration inspector quite a bit. Of course one could use other products in conjunction like SharpCap, etc. but at least for me, it's nicer that it's all integrated into one app rather than paying SGPro, SharpCap, CCDi, etc. separately. Also (since this is an ASA forum!), with Photon's N.I.N.A. plug-in, you can generate sky models between N.I.N.A. & AutoSlew. I think if you want to use SGPro, you'd still need to use Sequence/MaximDL to generate the model before jumping to SGPro for the scheduling. So with N.I.N.A., Photon's plug-in, you're doing less jumping back 'n forth between apps. Edited December 28, 2023 by AnakChan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichiP Posted December 30, 2023 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2023 I will stick with N.I.N.A. because N.I.N.A. can control my dome way better than the other programs. 🙂 But maybe you can help me with one remaining problem with N.I.N.A. I can connect my DDM 85, goto is also working very well. However, when I connect N.I.N.A. with Autoslew, I receive this error message: I can also not move the mount with the buttons directly in N.I.N.A. When I hit any button e.g. N, E, S, or W. I get this error message: The buttons Park and Unpark are working. Any ideas about what this is causing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnakChan Posted December 31, 2023 Report Share Posted December 31, 2023 I've never been able to connect from N.I.N.A. to AutoSlew directly. I've always had problems, and at least to my understanding it's these kind of cases where the AutoSlew implementation of ASCOM for legacy/obsolete ASA mounts (i.e. DDM60/DDM85) is unmaintained. I've always needed to connect N.I.N.A. to AutoSlew indirectly through some kind of proxy such as ASCOM DeviceHub or ASCOM Remote, but still had issues. This is where Photon's ASA ASCOMProxyHub has been extremely invaluable in having N.I.N.A. to operate with AutoSlew seamlessly. Then in addition, his N.I.N.A. ASA Plug-In simplifies modelling even more. Note, AutoSlew for the current ASA DDM mounts (to my understanding) is updated to be more "ASCOM current". I don't know when/if ASA will update the AutoSlew versions for the legacy mounts though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
photon Posted January 1 Report Share Posted January 1 Hi Michi, as AnakChan already mentioned you need both the ASCOM "Proxy" Driver and the NINA Plugin to use NINA without the need to use Sequenz/MaximDL. I am a little bit biased here, but for me this is working great. Regarding automation software, I was using ACP DC3 since 10+ years and have tried SGP, Voyager, CCD Autopilot and NINA. I migrated from ACP to NINA last year and am quite happy. My only concern are unsafe conditions when I'm at bed but this can be solved using the Powerups Plugins. To be honest, nothing comes close to automation compared to ACP but I have the feeling this software is stuck in development since many years. At NINA, the developers are doing something new every day (you can join their Discord Server too) and it's open source, so you could even do your own things here. Gerald Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichiP Posted January 6 Author Report Share Posted January 6 Hi Anak, hi Chan, First of all, thank you Gerald, for your hard work on writing the plugin 🙂 I have never thought about ACP for the same reason as you said. They don't look like they are spending much on further development, but I'm glad you also tested several programs and moved to N.I.N.A. With the Hub I was able to get rid of the error that was coming when I was connecting N.I.N.A. but when I try to move the mount it get this one: I'm using Beta 3.0. is it a known problem with the Beta? Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
photon Posted January 7 Report Share Posted January 7 Servus Michi, when does this error occur? We are not able to set tracking rates using Autoslew, also not with the Proxy ASCOM thing. The only possiblilty is to enable/disable tracking and to use different slew rates, which is needed for the 3-point polar alignment plugin. I also migrated to NINA 3 Beta but don't have this issue. You can also reach me directly to further clarify this issue, you can find my e-mail at http://skyimages.at/about/ Gerald Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichiP Posted January 10 Author Report Share Posted January 10 Hi Gerald, The error happens when I try to move the telescope with the buttons in NINA. The connection runs well without errors since I'm connecting through the Hub. I'll write you an email, thank you for the offer Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now