Telescope busy??

[GeorgeCarey]

Tonight I am getting an error that I have never had before. I tried to centre a star in Maxim with 'Move telescope here' and I get 'Telescope busy'.

Disconnect scope and reconnect and then I can centre a star. But there is no after slew image.

 

I tried to start guiding and the guide commands were not getting to the scope. Disconnect/connect and now guiding works.

 

I am expecting to get another error after the image is taken because I am dithering between images.

 

Any ideas?

[MikePaling]

I am not sure if I can help you much with your problem George.

 

I have had some problems with MaximDL (v6..2) over the last 18 months and must admit I am getting fed up at times :-(

 

I feel that Maxim is a "bit flaky" and cannot be relied upon all of the time :-((

 

My main problems seem to happen when I ask it to find my focus using the "V-curve" system in Maxim. Too often it just gets stuck and I have to re-start it which "usually" sorts it out .... but not always.

 

Last night, as I was a bit short of time so didn't even try to use SEQUENCE, I came across a new problem. I asked Maxim to take a series of 5x300sec CLS images and I set Maxim to "dither" between the separate images. After taking the first image I got a message saying "Waiting" and just stuck there until I got very bored.

As soon as I started to close Maxim down I got another message saying "Waiting for telescope" .... at which point I had to close everything down quickly including Autoslew. But of course I then had to quickly open up Maxim again as I had to warm up my CCD from -20c in a controlled manner. It is very possible that I had not set up Maxim correctly but I gave up at this point.

 

In the last 18 months I have had to completely uninstall Maxim and reinstall to get it working again.

 

I am hoping to use Sequence at the next opportunity ... and hopefully the "focusing" routine will work OK without Maxim making any conflicts.

 

Am I correct in thinking that Maxim "has to be used" with Autoslew and Sequence on my DDM60 Pro?? There are no alternatives? I understand that Diffration Limited are no longer spending any time Maxim's development.

 

What sort of set-up do the people who have the professional sized mounts & scopes? Do they use Maxim???

[GeorgeCarey]

I think 'Waiting for telescope' is an Autoslew generated error - but it is so long ago that I had such problems I have forgotten.

My problem last night was, I think, a USB lead error. The dome stopped rotating with the scope which I spotted when the stars started to distort as the dome slit obscured the telescope.

I disconnected and reconnected the dome and all was well. 

I am using everything now and so far no problems.

 

I was unaware of Diffraction Ltd stopping Maxim development - bad news!

[MikePaling]

Very glad that you sorted your problem ... no luck with my latest Maxim problem though :-(

 

I started up Maxim again tonight ... I get the same problem with MaximDL freezing when asked to do it's Autofocus routine.

 

However .... good news ... Sequence did the complete job including the autofocus routine and dithering :-((((

 

I think that I will just do the very basic stuff on Maxim from now on and save all serious stuff for Sequence :-)))

[GeorgeCarey]

Which version of Maxim do you use?

Mine is an old one, 5.2 I think, and works very well.

The only annoying thing is that when focussing, it draws the V curve and then plonks the focus miles away from the lowest point.

I nearly always have to look at the numbers and adjust.

[MikePaling]

I seems that I probably got it wrong about Diffraction Limited not developing MaximDl any more .... after re-reading some info on the Moravian web download site they have posted the following ... "  Diffraction Limited no longer develops the MaxIm DL plug-in API and recommends to use ASCOM camera drivers instead of the native ones." This does not mean that Maxim itself in not being developed!

 

I am using MaxImDL v6.2.

 

I stall can't get the V curve routine to work after trying again last night. Good job that the Autofocus routine works well in Sequence  

Mike

[kolec]

Try  turn of "Prier flip" in MaxDl Camera control (guide).

 

Mayby it hepls!

Edited October 1, 2019 by kolec

[MikePaling]

Hi Kolec ..

I do not use a guide camera.  .... but thanks for taking time to send me a suggestion :-)