ACE SmartDome and ACP's Elevation Requests

[Gerald Ruch]

I have an ASH Dome with the automation kit from Astronomical Consultants and Equipment (ACE SmartDome).

Although my dome doesn't have any elevation capability, when it is slaved in ACP, I consistently get a Refresh Timer Exception when I point the telescope such that a dome elevation less than zero is required. For example, when I want to park the telescope in a service position to install/remove mirror covers etc.

SmartDome does have an "accept elevation" setting, which I have set to zero, but I still see the dome driver getting elevation requests and I still get the error. They are unable to reproduce the error at ACE. Any ideas?


Thanks!

~Gerry

[Gerald Ruch]

Here is the message in the console window immediately following the less than zero elevation request.

[**REFRESH TIMER EXCEPTION**][Source: ACP]
[Automation error]
[Phase = 3]

[Bob Denny]

Gerald --

ACP will send elevation to the dome only if it reports that it can accept elevation requests. Is there a way to turn OFF "Accept Elevation Requests"? WIll that cause the ACE dome to report that it cannot accept elevation requests? If so this would be the proper solution.

[Gerald Ruch]

SmartDome does have an "Accept Elevations" setting, which I have set to 0. However, it still receives elevation requests from ACP. I've passed your message along to ACE. I'll update this thread when I have more information or a solution.

~Gerry

[Bob Denny]

OK. Um, how do you know ACP is sending elevation requests? If you are using POTH, could it be that you have told POTH to report different capabilities? Maybe try using Pipe which does not interfere?

[Gerald Ruch]

I didn't have POTH inline... I was watching the console window in the SmartDome driver and saw that it was still processing elevation requests. At your suggestion, I've put Pipe between ACP and SmartDome and found that, even though SmartDome's "Accept Elevations" attribute is set to 0, it still reports True when ACP queries the "CanSetAltitude" attribute. I've passed this information on to the fine folks at ACE.

I'd like to add that the root of my problem is that I'd like to put the telescope in a 'service' position at the end of the night which, if I had a dome that had an elevation feature, would result in an illegal elevation. How would one park the telescope in such a position If ACP disconnects with an automation error in this instance?

~Gerry

[Edit]
ACE has just gotten back to me. They agree that the driver is incorrectly reporting that it accepts elevation requests. They'll have an updated driver to me soon.

[Bob Denny]

Good news on the excellent customer service from ACE. As for the service position issue, parking the scope does not result in dome slaving. If you are slewing the scope to a position with a normal slew then I can see the issue. I will deal with any issues like that when (a) someone has a dome that really takes and uses altitude,and (b) needs to use a manual slew instead of park for putting the scope away. I suspect it will be a while :-)

[Gerald Ruch]

I agree completely. ACE has sent a new driver and everything works perfectly. My Scheduler database is loaded up with targets... We're rockin' and rollin'!

Thanks Bob.

[Bob Denny]

Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!