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Software for mount control

Unspecified/unknown company EQMod Open PHD Guiding Project PHD2 Equipment Equatorial Mount GoTo
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matt113d avatar
matt113d avatar
I have been playing around with controlling my mount directly using the USB port on my EQM35 and have finally got ascom and eqmod playing nicely (always used the hand control before).

I had planned to use stellarium to control the mount but have been struggling. I find the sync hotkey seems to work and then not work on different days making aligning the software and hardware frustrating. It also seems to be crashing constanly, just straight to desktop without warning. Reading into this it seems that it's a problem the developer are aware of but are yet to address.

What do you guys use? I use auto guiding too (though my old asi120 doesn't work with my new computer since it's windows 11…) and have had no issues with PHD2 since I first got it working.

Any suggestions would be great!
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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar
EQMOD or Green Swamp Server are needed as the control interface between any other software and the mount. After that it depends on what you want to accomplish. I've found that controlling from planetarium software is hit or miss at best and these days, really not the way to go. Both NINA, SharpCap Pro can plate solve and drive your mount to any object in the sky. It feels like magic is you've never done it before making GoTo a thing of the past. You can even do this through your guide scope. Really, no need for planetarium software at all.
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Christian Großmann avatar
Christian Großmann avatar
I agree with @Gondola . These days, plate solving is the best way to go. He suggested NINA which is a great tool for this. You can set Stellarium (or similar programs) as source for its framing assistent. Then you can select your view in Stellarium, switch to Nina and slew to the coordinates Stellarium is showing including plate solving the real location of the scope. This works really well. With EQMod, the mount is controlled by NINA without any issues.
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Pirate Mike avatar
Pirate Mike avatar
I have been using Voyager for quite some time after trying SGP for a short period, and I wouldn't trade Voyager for anything.

I would dump Stellarium as a control software and use EQMod to control the mount (your mount was made to use EQMod) and then SGP, NINA or even Voyager to pull all the setup together.
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matt113d avatar
matt113d avatar
Thanks for this! I have been looking at plate solving (I have been using sharpcap pro for imaging anyway for years). When I got my mount I found GoTo was convenient enough that I never tryied anythin else but I've had a few years out and coming back to it, I'm determined to do it right!
Dale Penkala avatar
Dale Penkala avatar
Well evidently I’m in the minority here. I do prefer using a planetarium software while observing/imaging. I really like Cartes de Ciel (CDC). It’s free and has tons of catalogue options that you can download. I use this on all 3 rigs (3 different laptops) in which I’m incorporating SharpCap & PHD2. I’m using it on 2 AP1200GTO mounts and a CGE Pro mount that I converted over to OnStep.

As far as plate-solving, yes SC does that with no problems but I find my pointing accuracy is so close that never need to PS and even if I did most of the time I tend “reframe” my shots anyway so its a waste of time for me.
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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar
One thing I really like about plate solving in NINA is the ability to detect not only the position of the frame but it's rotation. I can very quickly setup a shot and get the exact composition I want. For me, that's a great time saver.
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