EITSA – Eye in the Sky

iOptron iEQ45 GTN ASCOM driver

 ASCOM TELESCOPE DRIVER FOR EQUATORIAL MOUNTS WITH 8407 HAND CONTROLLER

This new driver was developed for the iOptron equatorial mounts that are using the telescope RS-232 command language v1.4 (e.g.  v8407 hand controllers), in particular iEQ45, iEQ30, ZEQ25 and SmartEQ.  The iEQ45_8407 driver presented on this page is implemented complying to the ASCOM telescope V3 Standard. The driver is free, developed and tested using a iOptron iEQ45 GTN equatorial mount. Developed by Andrea Conci (cionki), if you encounter bugs/problems you can write and email to info[at]eitsa.it please put “iOptron ASCOM driver” in the subject (if I can I will try to solve them quickly).

Follow these steps to Install the iEQ45_8407 ASCOM Driver

  • ASCOM Platform 6.2 or later must be installed, 6.4SP1 is highly recommended. You can download it from the ASCOM website.
  • The driver was implemented using .Net framework, you must have .Net Framework 4 installed on your machine. If you don’t have it installed you can download it from the Microsoft Download page.
  • Once the ASCOM Platform and the .Net framework 4 are installed you can proceed to the installation of the iOptron driver (download link on the bottom of this page).
Features of the iEQ45_8407 ASCOM Driver

  • The driver is compatible with 32 and 64bit systems.
  • It provides asynchronous and synchronous slew commands.
  • It provides asynchronous Pulseguide support (simultaneous RA and DEC guide correction are supported). Pulseguide enables the guiding operations without the need of using a ST4 cable.
  • It provides an easy control window to check the status of the mount and perform basic operations (movements, set the guiding speed, homing, set the tracking rate).
  • The driver is an ASCOM telescope HUB and support natively multiple ASCOM client applications simultaneously.
  • The driver manage faulty serial communication retrying (3 times)the commands if a communication error is detected.
  • The driver reports the ASCOM SideOfPier to the client applications signaling the telescope pointing state (normal or beyond the pole following the ASCOM Standard requirements).
  • The control window reports the physical side of pier, thus indicating the real position of the telescope east or west.
  • The control window reports the offset for both axes in degrees. This indicates the distance performed from the last GOTO command in degrees. The offset distance reports only the distance traveled (since the last GOTO command) using the hand controller’s buttons or the control window movement’s buttons.
  • Compliant to the ASCOM Telescope V3 Standard.

 

Downloads (03/02/2019)

 

ASCOM Driver Installer:  iEQ45_8407 ASCOM Driver Setup

ASCOM Driver compliance test report: iEQ45_8407 ASCOM Validation

Release Notes:

28/01/2019: initial public release (with ASCOM HUB architecture)

03/02/2019: installer updated with some minor graphical interface improvements (driver functionalities “untouched” the same as the previous release)

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