EQMOD_ASCOM_V122g
Save Alignment Points to Preset on APPEND option added.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V122f
Further changes to simulator display.
Axis position dials added to main display.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V122e
Fix to simulator RA display.
Goto screen (right click on the main display RA/DEC coords) now provides a bookmarked positions list replacing the previous single bookmark.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V122d
Fix to custom rate calculations for EQ5 type mounts.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V122c
Backlash range increased upto 200ms max
Mount param debug.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V122b
Slew rate Limit dropdown replaced with slider control.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V122a
Fix to solar and lunar “sound” labels
Fix to Italian language translation that affected joystick config parsing
Ability to override language to English (setup screen)
Update checking and notification.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V121e
Max slew rate feature introduced (requires evaluation)
Ability to increase windows process priority
EQMOD_ASCOM_V121d
Clear sync, Define Park and Resynch encoder text buttons replaced with graphics
Italian language dll
EQMOD_ASCOM_V121c
Graphical button backgrounds set to icon background colour.
ASCOM option for synchronous parking - May be important if your client application expects
EQASCOM to "block" until the mount is parked (ASCOM standard method).
Initialisation errors are now displayed on the main mount status display.
Points List, Clear Alignment and Add Point buttons replaced with graphical buttons.
Rate changes can now be made on the fly whilst manually slewing.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V121b
———————————–
current Sitename now stored in ini file
eqascom_run - error handling improved and polling suspended during shutdown prompt.
Fix to custom mount RA/DEC dropdown initialisation.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V121a
Custom Mount tracking offset added to ini file - allows users to apply a larger offset than is available via drift compensation.
Custom mount setup dialog added (accessed from button on setup screen)
Graphical buttons replacing text - cleaner interface
Gamepad setup accessible from setup screen.
Toolbox ini file move between simulator and EQASCOM
GPS option added to setup screen.
Site presets added to setup screen.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120k
Fix to PC beep on rate preset change (long beep on max/min preset had been lost)
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120j
Message and ASCOM file logs now use a two file approach to prevent massive logs. Each file contains 2000 logs.
New and updated language dlls.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120i
Declination backlash compensation for pulse guide.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120h
ASCOM PulseGuide command now will have no effect on E/W directions if not tracking. Previously there was a bug that meant the requested pulse never completed.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120g
3 o'clock and 9 o'clock starting positions added to polar alignment.
Gamepad button assignment option added for Polar Scope alignment
Alignment sounds (Accept, Cancel End)
Polar Scope Alignment sounds.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120f
Goto initiation sound option.
fix to align dialog slew button layout.
Optimisation of goto handling.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120e
More sounds (tracking and unpark).
PoleStar Hour Angle no uses J2000 coords and applies precession.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120d
Greater sound control for folks who like to have their mount's speak to them.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120c
Minor fix to slew resolution ini default , V1.20b set this to 0 by mistake. V1.20c will automatically fix existing ini files to the correct default of 10.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120b
“Advanced” checkbox added to setup form - When checked various “advanced controls on the EQASCOM UI are made visible
Auto RA sync is now only displayed when operating in “advanced mode”
New option for 3-star “Closest Points” or “Best Center” This is an advanced feature.
New “point filter” dropdown - “All”, “PierSide Only” and “Local Quadrant”
Number of Slew iterations is now read from the ini file.
Slew termination resolution no read from ini file
Pulseguide enable / disable via ASCOM commandstring.
Fix to manual Horizon entry.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V120a
Improvement to Alignment pierside implementation.
Minor improvements to alignment map display.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V119g
Change to slew release code to put back to V119a state - some problems reported with sidereal not restarting.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V119f
Fix to simulator - was terminating slews early due to rA tracking stopping DEC motor.
Store and Recall functions added to goto form.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V119e
Fix gamepad slew south - didn't work when assigned to button rather than POV.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V119d
Goto form placed “on top” when opened.
Search option added to setup form to auto-detect com port (when connected to mount).
EQMOD_ASCOM_V119c
Optimisation of slew release for sub-sidereal speeds.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V119b
Icons added to dialogs
Bug fix to drift compensation value which was reset if comms failure stopped EQASCOM initialising
Fix to slews (southern hemisphere and sub-sidereal)
Addition to game pad configuration to allow the device to be explicitly selected rather than using automatic detection.
Preparatory work for wider mount support.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V119a
New “proximity range” parameter as part of N-Point Alignment. Existing points within range of a new point are automatically removed from the points list.
Slew Rates now include pulse guide rates for sub sidereal rate movement.
Setup form not includes ability to define Slew preset rates
Fix to E, NE and SE slews when at x1 rate.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118m
Fix to sync handling and POV controls (POV buttons were initiating syncs)
Goto function added (right click RA/DEC display)
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118l
Fix to Westward slew commands when reversed.
Fix to allows NW and SW slews to take into account tracking.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118k
POV disable option now applies during game pad configuration.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118j
Slew pad rates linked to main interface rate sliders - so if main sliders change so do slew pad rates.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118i
Pulseguide logging always active.
Bug fix to POV handling
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118h
Slew pad keyboard handling. Rate preset change via + and -, *=spiral search.
Game pad handling - POV (D-PAD) buttons now capable of individual assignment
Pulse guide monitors now wrap around - cursor added to show current position.
Fix to limit detection during slews (limits were always applied regardless of the limit on slew option)
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118g
Minor change to point transformation map display of mount position.
CommandString interfaces added for reading and writing PulseGuide rates
CommandString interfaces added for reading and writing ST4 Guide rates
Exception handling improvements to GPS serial communications (may help will dodgy drivers!).
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118f
Fix to points list delete (would delete even if list was empty)
Wider range of GPS baud rates supported
Re-write of command string parsing
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118e
Goto Star hidden from Point editor (button and menu)
Code speed efficiency improved on alignment list searches
Fix to reading of ASCOM RightAscensionRate property.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118d
Key handling for points list selection changes
ini file handling - bug fix to handle very large ini files.
Transformation map now “draws as it goes” so folks can see the progress (important for large points lists)
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118c
Points editor now automatically refreshes list if alignment point count changes.
Points editor is sizable
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118b
Time to Meridian limit added
Rework of points list display to use tabs
alignment map moved to Points Editor - many improvements
EQMOD_ASCOM_V118a
Alignment Save now crops data to alignment point count. Previously “unused” entries could remain in the ini file (they caused no harm, but were confusing)
Park status is now written to the ini whenever the mount unparks. Previously “unparks” were only written on closure which meant that in event of a PC crash the an “unparked” mount could appear as parked on subsequent restart (thereby loosing PEC sync).
Sync button added to game pad handling
Rework to provide support for early binding.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V117f
Bug fix to ASCOM Pulseguide enable - was associated with exception disable state.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V117e
Simulator fixes & improvements
Custom rate - rates up to 12000 arc secs / sec allowed.
Fixes to on the fly rate change behaviour - motors were stopping if moving from slow to fast rates.
Log message center to file.
Option to disable ASCOM exceptions.
This version was withdrawn and replaced with v117f
EQMOD_ASCOM_V117d
Fix to loading of custom mount parameters
EQMOD_ASCOM_V117c
Resynch Encoders button added.
EQASCOM_toolbox included in the install
EQMOD_ASCOM_V117b
Fix to simulator read of motor positions - wrap arounds were not simulated and out of range values were returned.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V117a
Correction of default used for Polaris RA.
POV disable option added to allow ASCOMPAD to control focuser using those buttons.
Affine Taki+Polar checkbox hidden
Alignment process simplified.
EQMOD_ASCOM_V116k
New ASCOM interfaces to initiate the various park/unpark modes
Fix to button decoding when using Spanish/Dutch land dlls
Disabling of Polar Alignment measurement pending completion - enable ini file (POLAR_ALIGNMENT=1)
Fix to store N-Point Alignment mode (nearest didn't previously save)
Preparatory work for goto slew rate option - not active yet though.
PEC debug options slightly modified.
Fix to simulator sidereal rate.
Optional GPS initializer string (via ini file key GPS_INITSTRING)
Alternate 12 o'clock start position for polarscope alignment.
N- Point alignment option removed from user interface (N-Point+nearest is better)
EQMOD_ASCOM_V116j
Sound config options added. WAVfile alternative to beep.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V116i
Puleguide ignored if slewing
Simulator - replaced pie charts to remove need for mschrt20.ocx
Simulator - initializes to use EQASCOM site coords.
Fix to ini Meridian Flip ini reads (didn't work for non English locales)
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V116h
Fix to edit of park/unpark position name.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V116g
Fix to limits - limit on slew status not saved to ini
Fix to W slew (if tracking rate=rate+1 to compensate for sidereal motion)
Number of definable park and unpark position increased to 5
Fix so alignment save on park never writes empty alignment lists
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V116f
Fix to support PECPHASE, PECGAIN reads
Fix to PEC phase slider change.
Addition of PECFILE interface.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V116e
Main form height reduced slightly
Fix to PECSET
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V116d
Fix to PEC Export
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V116c
Align polarscope home position definition and goto functions added.
Fix to PEC
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V116b
Align polarscope function added.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V116a
ASCOM CommandString Interface to support PEC Phase, PEC Gain
ASCOM COmmandString change so the enabling/disabling PEC also starts/stops tracking
ASCOM CommandString Interface to support MOUNTVER, DRIVRVER and DLLVER
Go faster N-point calculations.
Max stars used in N-Point calc read from ini file
Resizeable polarscope view
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V115h
Custom mount support - test release
PEC restructure.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V115f
Alignment preset index saved on preset load and save (previously only saved on form closure).
Com port string prefix added for com10+ support
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V115d
Setup form forced to top.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V115c
Manual guiding via slew controls using pulseguide movements
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V115b
.txt extension forced for limit file saves
ASCOM error messages corrected.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V115a
Automatic pier flip option added.
Park to current no longer redefines the user defined park.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V114g
Fix to bug preventing Tour launch.
Bug fix to Alignment save / load (wouldn't let you select both options)
Bug fix to pulseguide enable defaults
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V114f
Encoder timer changed to be more tolerant of communications failures. On failure the emulated RA and last known DEC positions are used. An emergency stop is tried after five successive failures.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V114e
Bug fix: moveaxis - RA and DEC axis prescaler was left a default “1” if rate was negative.
Bug fix: If park state was “parking” joystick controls were still active.
Bug Fix: Alt and Az labels swapped in Horizon Editor listbox.
Bug Fix: Limit file reference now cleared when horizon is cleared.
Bug Fix: Horizon editor checkbox not initialised on form load.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V114d
Horizon editor added
ASCOM Pulseguide can be disabled if need,
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V114C
Log to file added to ASCOM trace
PEC now automatically applied to sidereal tracking.
RA & DEc included in PEC timestamp
Fix:- ASCOM interface now only returns status as parked when scope reaches park position - previously it would report parked whilst the mount was still parking.
Fix: ASCOM AbortSlew. Slew aborts only applied if already slewing. On abort completion tracking is returned to pre-slew rate.
Self installer added.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V114b
ASCOM trace added (double click ASCOM logo)
EQTour & EQMOSAIC launch now writes ASCOM driver ID to their ini files.
Option for full ASCOM compliance - No slews unless tracking is set (default to non compliant to work with CDC, HNSKY, Stellarium)
PEC ASCOM interface added via CommandString.
Alignment preset load, bug fix to allow for internationalisation (decimal separator)
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V114a
Joystick calibration
Joystick disable option via ini file
ASCOM DestinationPierSider support
ASCOM tracking - tracking rate offsets applied whenever tracking started.
ASCOM Park check and error reporting for MoveAxis, tracking etc. - greater level of conformance PEC extra error handling and debug output
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113t
Support for ASCOM Rates collection
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113s
Option to load alignment from preset on unpark
Option to save alignment to preset on park
Right click added to Tour/Mosaic buttons to set exe path.
Tooltips added for Mosaic & Tour buttons
PoleStar Hour angle display added.
File name now displayed as part of PEC status frame title
Updated Spanish dll
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113r
Fix to EQ5 & EQ3 steps per worm rev calculation
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113p
ASCOM PierSide read support added.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113p
N-point 3-Point Center Point, Sync Append as N-point
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V1130
Modified N-point (ALT/AZ Coordinate Transformation)
EQMOD_ASCOM_V113n
Additional error checking to Tour/Mosaic quick launch.
Form resize of Joystick config form (left bigger than it need be in a previous release)
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113m
Addition of EQMosaic and EQTour quick launch buttons.
Spiral button replaced with graphical button.
Park/Unpark button now takes caption text from appropriate park/unpark drop down.
Spanish dll updated.
Polar Alignment tool - Initial framework included for evaluation.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113L
Park status saved on DCOM termination, ASCOM disconnection and on PARK slew completion
Mount status now shows “PARKING…” and “PARKED” when slew is complete.
PulseGuide Monitor moved to one of the cyclic status displays. Individual zoom for RA and DEC axis.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113k
Park/Unpark operation:
Individual Park buttons replaced with drop-downs list to select behaviour and single Park/Unpark button to action.
ASCOM Pulseguide Monitor:
Available via double click on ASCOM PulseGuiding frame.
Pulseguide corrections are plotted across a time axis with the height/amplitude of the wave determined by the duration value being passed to the eqmod driver.
Here you can easily visualize the characteristics of the corrections being sent to the mount. Sample of them would be oscillations or correction overshoots, undershoots (less aggressive) and no correction at all. The graph changes real time depending on the type of modifications made to the guiding parameters.
RA and DEC Correction Pulsewidth gain:
A 100% gain setting means EQMOD will apply “as is” the correction
duration value as provided by the client autoguiding software. Anything below 100 will force EQMOD to reduce the correction duration as a “percentage” of what the autoguiding software has submitted. That is for example a “75%” gain setting would convert a 100 millisecond
correction to 75 milliseconds.
Motor Position Emulation:
EQMOD ASCOM now emulates the values in between the 200ms AutoRA
Sync sample. Previously clients requesting either motor position or RA/DEC coordinates may have read values up to 200ms out of date. New 'emulated' values are now calculated on request.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113j
PEC: PE correction rates are now pre-calculated to ensure minimum drift remained caused by the quantisation of ideal rate into those the mount can recognise. Any drift induced by PEC can be assessed by using the EQMOD_RA_DRIFT_METER application with PEC running and noting any net gain over a multi cycle period (there will be cyclical drift due to the correction process).
The PEC playback is now automatically resynchronised to the current motor position and so the [resynch] button has been removed.
An issue with earlier mount control boards not returning the number of worm steps has been fixed. If a valid number isn't returned then it is loaded from the ini file instead (default EQ6 value).
PEC save now uses a file format compatible with perecorder version 1.0.12 or later. PEC file load has been change to accept perecorder V1.0.12 file format (earlier versions should also load).
Graphical tracking buttons are trialled with this version. Each button displays associated tooltip text (loaded from the various language dlls) when hovering over it
EQMOD V1.13j includes French, Spanish and Dutch language dlls.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113i
Fix:
Pulse guide Interval setting automatically saved on ini file upon movement of the slider bar and not only on driver exit.
New:
Added an “Auto RA Sync” option
Auto RA Sync function was initially applied on old EQMOD releases and then removed when Maurice reported a drift when the mount is being polled at a regular interval of 200ms. However this drift is not known to exist on mounts on later versions. If ever the drift exists, it can be compensated using the RA Drift Compensate slider bar (which is not available as user-define-able setting back then). Auto syncing will work best for PERecorder and PECPlayback without relying on the emulated stepper values as it reads absolute mount positions both during recording and during playback.
With this release, the auto sync function is made available at the user's option to enable it or to disable it. To make PEC work best on the two modes;
Auto RA Sync function Disabled: RA value is generated using emulated (PC clock accurate) stepper values
If user is not using PEC, best option is to disable the AutoSync function. This to ensure that there will be no COMMs drift regardless of board version. If user wishes to use PEC, both modes will work, you are simply required to RA Drift Compensate on both settings.
The RA Drift Compensation setting is automatically reset to “0” whenever the RA Sync function setting is changed. This ensures that the user has to re-define his RA compensation settings.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113h
Uploaded a test version of the EQMOD driver which improves the Stepper Emulator routines (used primarily for PERecording and PEC playback). Sidereal tracking accuracy is not related to this modification.
The versions prior to this release uses VB timers as 'software emulation' for stepper counters. The VB timers tend to lose their count accuracy whenever there are heavy processes working at the windows background and the errors tend to accumulate until the next sync operation because the stepper motor count is incremented based on fixed a constant on every timer tick.
Current version uses the PC's on-board hardware clock as basis for the computation. The VB timer here is now used to read the PC clock and convert its value to an emulated stepper motor count.
This version also includes the V1.3 Spanish DLL.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113g
Fix:
Extend RA Compensation settings: from -20 up to 20 (at 0.024 rcsec/sec per step)
RA Compensation settings now also compensates joystick/button/pad count slews
New Adjustable Eqmod Parameter:
Pulse guide Granularity Setting (Minimum Correction Pulse width) - The original minimum width setting was hard coded to 50 milliseconds (default value). Users can now adjust this value using a slider bar from 10 milliseconds to 50 milliseconds allowing correction pulse widths as low as 10 milliseconds on the given guide rate. PHD for example have correction duration values lower than 50 milliseconds. The combination of PEC, Drift compensation and Pulseguide granularity settings would allow the autoguiding software to poke even “minuscule” corrections to the mount from 0.1x up to 0.9x of the sidereal rate.
Users who are comfortable with their own pulse guide settings should keep this value to 50 milliseconds.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113f
Drift compensation slider bar. This slider bar basically “fine-tunes” the RA motor tracking rate. However, not all mounts require RA motor speed compensation, thus you may have to leave the settings to 0.
The drift compensation slider bar settings are stored in the ini file
thus this should only be a one time setting unless you feel the need to compensate also for drift caused by polar alignment.
Usage:
Basically you move the slider bar to the desired setting and then click any of the tracking buttons. A positive value rotates the motor faster, a negative value rotates the motor slower.
NOTE: You need to click the desired tracking button again every time you change the compensation setting.
The drift compensation settings also adjusts the custom tracking rate, PEC, Sidereal, lunar, Solar, and pulse guide rates using your target minimal drift sidereal rate as the base rate.
The RA compensation setting does not affect the mounts slews (spiral, gotos, joystick, pad).
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_113e
“PEC+Sidereal” displayed when tracking with PEC (previously custom rate was displayed)
Joystick configuration modified to include PEC+Sidereal tracking button assignment.
Mount worm period is now determined automatically thereby providing PEC support for EQ5. The Worm Period is exposed via Com interface RAWormPeriod.
Sidereal rate stored and read form the EQMOD ini file.
TimeStamp button added to the PEC display. When pressed, EQMOD reads the mounts RA motor position and writes it, together timestamp to the
ini file. This feature is included so that if third party software such as K3CCDTools or PHD etc. is used record sidereal PE it will be possible for PECPrep to use the position time stamp to synchronise the acquired data to worm position and thereby produce a PE file that can be read into perecorder for smoothing & drift removal. Whilst perecorder is the preferred tool for PE acquisition this may provide an acceptable method for those using camera types that perecorder doesn't currently support.
PEC + Pulse guiding changes:
When a pulse guide command is received the correction pulse is applied using the current PEC rate not sidereal. During the pulse period PEC rate calculations continue but are not applied to the mount. When the Pulse finishes the rate is set to the result of the most recent PEC calculation.
Sync mode and N-Point checkboxes have been replaced with two drop down lists - “Alignment Behavior” and “Sync Behavior”. Hopefully this will remove some confusion over these options.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113d
Changes from previous version as follows:
Bug fix to Autoguider DEC rate load from ini
PE corrections stopped on Park.
[Sidereal + PEC] button enabled on manual PEC file load.
New [Display+] button added to cycle through main status displays
On manual PEC file load main status frame shows the PEC curve.
[setup] button moved to allow minimal desktop footprint.
Window now restores both height when setup is closed - If the user resizes the window (perhaps to show only the status display) then on [setup] the window is expanded in height and width - on closing setup the window restores to the previous size.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_113c
Integrated PEC playback. This represents the first stage of full PEC integration and allows tracking a PEC+Sidereal rate.
Full integration of PEC with other EQMOD services such as pulse guiding, gamepad button support etc. have not yet be completed and
will follow in due course.
Some interface changes have been necessary to make space to add this
new feature.:
PulseGuiding settings: Vertical sliders have been replaced by horizontal sliders.
AutoGuider Port Rate: Individual rate buttons replaced by drop down lists.
Alignment/Sync: AFFINE_TAKI+POLAR option added (removed from “Other Settings”)
Slew Controls: Spiral search controls added (removed from “Other Settings”)
Track Rate: Custom tracking controls added; PEC+Sidereal button Added.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113b
A new 'custom' interface to allow clients to instigate Sidereal rate adjustment without causing EQMOD to background poll the RA/DEC motor positions (the current MoveAxis interface does this). This interface may be subsequently removed once PEC has been fully integrated into EQMOD itself.
The Custom Tracking Rate is now saved into the ini file on EQMOD load
and saved on EQMOD closure as per the recent request on this forum.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V113a
The simulator and actual driver now use separate ini files. Find the sim files in %appdata%\EQMOD_SIM. If you want you can copy ini files back and forth as much as you like.
EQMOD_ASCOM_BETA_V112l
Bug fixes:
RA Limit reset was still being overridden to default position on start up. Now if you set it to 0 it stays at 0.
If EQMOD was maximised then the setup button pressed it would crash due to an unhandled exception - fix: handle the exception!
Fix to MoveAxis function such that in-progress slews take priority.
New features
The Slewpad from can now be resized and the associate controls will reposition accordingly. This allows you to have a larger (or indeed smaller) slew pad area to receive mouse clicks. Dimensions are stored in the ini file so are preserved
Two new COM interfaces added SyncRaMotor and SyncDecMotor. These return the current motor position from the mount and force a synchronisation of the emulated positions maintained by the driver. The provision of these new functions is the primary reason for this release as they are useful in syncronising motor position with PEC capture and Playback (currently under development). It is likely that to use these applications in future V112l or later will be a pre-requisite.