Struggling to get this working with Nexstar Evolution 6

[lmolteno]

Hi There,

Many thanks for writing this. I am using KStars via INDI to talk to to a Nexstar Evolution 6. Both are connected to a WiFi router and I can start the INDI server and it successfully connects.

Even after aligning with the Nexstar+ hand controller, the mount doesn't move when using either the KStars (slew or track) or directly using the INDI Main Control Tab. If I choose a new destination, then the light next to "Eq. Coordinates" goes orange and stays that way until I hit the 'Abort Motion' button.

I have tried all variations I can think of, including playing with the Alignment Tab, and setting Time/GPS etc. Nothing seems to work. Logs indicate that there may be errors in the alignment, many errors like:

NSEVO 145.899002 sec : ReadScopeStatus - Alt 0.000000 deg ; Az 0.000000 deg
NSEVO 145.899143 sec : ReadScopeStatus - TransformTelescopeToCelestial failed
NSEVO 145.899197 sec : ReadScopeStatus - HavePosition true
NSEVO 145.899254 sec : ReadScopeStatus - ApproximateMountAlignment ZENITH

Is there minimum set of steps that I could do to get started? i.e. very basic baby steps?
indi_nexstarevo_telescope_08:40:16_truncated.log

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

[jochym]

I trust you are using recent version of the driver from the indi distribution. This repo is really not for public consumption. Here I have testing/experimental code etc.
Assuming the above: you cannot use both hand controller and any AUX driver (this goes for my driver as well as for celestron app or skysafari). You can have the HC connected but any actions will mess up the communication.
I will, gladly help making it work - but I am fairly busy recently so I may not respond for some periods of time.
I see nothing obviously wrong in the log. In general you have to connect to the mount (verify by the light on the mount) and first align the driver by pointing to three stars and syncing (remember to activate alignment plugin in the proper tab). Then it should just work...

[lmolteno]

Hi There,

Thanks for your reply. I am using the driver that is distributed with INDI. From what I gather I should be doing the following:

1. Switch on Scope, without hand controller plugged in (or anything else)
2. Connect to mount from INDI. Verify connection by lights on scope.
3. Activate alignment plugin in the Alignment Tab.
4. Point to star 1 using INDI controls to move telescope. Sync in the KStars interface. Repeat for two more stars.

At step 4 we have a problem as I can't move the telescope to point to a star because none of the INDI controls move the scope (should have mentioned that before, sorry).

(P.S. Using version 0.3 of indi_nexstarevo_telescope installed using the Ubuntu INDI repositories onto debian testing and I checked last week thasdt the firmware was fully up to date for the telescope)

[jochym]

OK. We have a baseline. You got the procedure correctly. I assume that you can control the scope with celestron application? This will verify that the network setup etc. is also correct.

I will verify if the setup still works on my scope. It should move the scope by slew or motion control - if it does not something must be wrong with the connection or maybe the driver got out of sync with the recent INDI API changes. Thanks for the report - stay tuned.

BTW. You may try to test the system using the simulator (3rdparty/indi-nexstarevo/simulator/ subdirectory of the driver in the indi source distro). You will need python 3.6 + some packages - this is a developer tool, not intended for end-users so it is a little low on documentation ;) Just run:

python3.6 ./nse_simulator.py

in the terminal (enlarge the window slightly first). It is good enough to fool the celestron app.

[lmolteno]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply and apologies for this slow response (I'm in New Zealand), I can indeed control the scope with the Celestron SkyPortal app. I tried the simulation and it worked perfectly, I could control the simulated scope with both the motion control tab and slewing, and it seemed to track well.

Once again many thanks for your help with this.

[lmolteno]

I have just compiled the driver from the INDI 3rd party github repository and it's working fine now.

[jochym]

Glad to hear! But that means that the distribution is problematic.

[jochym]

The driver was recently (few days ago) corrected. There was a stupid double open error in the communication part. The new version is in the PPA (mine or Jasem's). I would appreciate a report on how/if it is working now - obviously it works for me on my mount ;).

[lmolteno]

Thanks! I'll check to see how it works on the next clear night :) I'm running debian so I'll build from source.

[jochym]

You can actually use ubuntu packages from the PPA on debian. I am running debian as well and I am using PPA for indi on my systems. This is generally not recommended practice but in that case it works - since the packages are not intrusive.