Paramount Home command

[pedrocanel]

Anyone ever achieved homing a Paramount ME (MKS400) from ACP ? I'm thinking of something like sending a serial command to the port with a string ordering paramount to do that... Sinc I shutdown the power everyday I'm trying to power up everything frmo the web interface with some scripts which are already working. The only issue I have in order to finalize this is homing the mount. Has anyone done such a thing ?

[Bob Denny]

Yes, I do it routinely on several observatories. Look in the TheSky Controlled Telescope's Properties window. There is a "Automatically home mount on first connect" option. Turn this on, and the mount will home when you connect to it from ACP.

[Jack Harvey]

If you have Home after Link checked in The Sky>Telescope> More Settings>Setup, then when ACP automatically connects to the telescope you get Homing first thing. Anyway that is how ours works.

[pedrocanel]

The only minor problem with that is that the mount will hit the roof if I do that. That's the reason why I'm trying to send a serial command... because I need to open the roof first. Any ideas ?

[Jack Harvey]

Ahh a slightly more difficult problem than just homing. I better let Bob respond.

[pedrocanel]

There...cracked this nut!!!

Here's the script

Sub Main()
Set Tele = CreateObject("TheSky6.RASCOMTele")
console.printline "Homing Telescope...Please Wait..."
Tele.Connect
Tele.FindHome
console.printline "The telescope has been homed. Please proceed."
End Sub

Just put this inside a *.vbs and inside the webdocs/scripts folder and you'll be able to use via authoring the web page or via console through a script. This way the paramount is controllable (regarding the Home position before proceding) via web interface... Thanks for the support.

I've decided to share this just in case anyone comes across this very same issue.

[Jack Harvey]

Thanks for the heads up on how you did this. I do not have the roof issues you have so will probably continue with my old approach. However I bet others will like this.

[Bob Denny]

Good work!!!!! That scripting interface on TheSky can come in handy!

[Chris Johnson]

There...cracked this nut!!!

Here's the script

Sub Main()
Set Tele = CreateObject("TheSky6.RASCOMTele")
console.printline "Homing Telescope...Please Wait..."
Tele.Connect
Tele.FindHome
console.printline "The telescope has been homed. Please proceed."
End Sub

Just put this inside a *.vbs and inside the webdocs/scripts folder and you'll be able to use via authoring the web page or via console through a script. This way the paramount is controllable (regarding the Home position before proceding) via web interface... Thanks for the support.

I've decided to share this just in case anyone comes across this very same issue.

I'm in a similar situation, but I've noticed that ACP disconnects from the telescope when the home is complete. I need the following things to happen at startup:

ACP Connects to the Telescope and Roll-off Roof (m1 OASYS).
The Roll-off roof opens. (Switches on the roof confirm open)
The Paramount Homes. (Some safety mechanism to protect the mount if it homes when the roof isn't fully opened)

But when I connect to the Telescope & Roll-off roof, I can issue the "Dome Open". I then manually go to TheSky6 and issue a Paramount Home command. When the scope is homed, it then disconnects from the Telescope and also closes the m1OASYS ASCOM driver window. There is a slight issue with the m1OASYS ASCOM driver where if I immediately reconnect to it, it can't read the Roof Status. I then have to wait about 10 seconds and then reconnect to the Telescope, and then the Roof. I am then fully opened.

The m1OASYS also uses a nice scope sensor to cut power to the roof motor and not allow the roof to move if the scope is not in a safe position. They also provide a way via UPB to immediately shut off the power to the mount if the mount is moved when the roof is not in an open and secure position. Since I have all of my equipment on a UPS, UPB isn't possible since the communication signals travel over the electrical wiring. I haven't quite figured out a fail-safe way to turn off the Paramount if it starts to home when the roof is in an unsafe position.

The reason I need to get all of this working smoothly is to hopefully move to ACP Scheduler. I don't want my Paramount ME and SBIG camera running all day when parked. I need to automate an on / off of the mount and camera, opening and auto-homing of the Paramount, and closure and power down of the equipment in the AM.

Sorry for the ramble.

-Chris

[Bob Denny]

Mmmm.. complicated. One thing is the difference between parking and homing. I believe that homing a Paramount will not cause it to disconnect, but parking it definitely will. The disconnect is coming from the Paramount/TheSky not ACP (which is just responding gracefully to the telescope vaporizing).

The problem appears to be that you cannot home the Paramount with the roof closed. This makes it impossible to write a "normal" startup script in which the scope auto-homes via the setting in the TheSky driver. Is there a way, through direct scripting of the OASYS system (about which I know nothing) to open the roof? If so, then open the roof, then connect the Telescope (and roof) via ACP's Telescope.Connected = True which will auto home the paramount (via the driver's "home on connect" option)...