Sneak Preview: New ASCOM Driver

Update: Yang reported an error with the driver not handling COM ports other than COM1. I think I’ve corrected that issue, so if you had the same problem, uninstall the driver, redownload it, and reinstall and give it a whirl.

If you’re using this new driver, please leave me a comment below and let me know.

I’ve been working on an updated ASCOM driver for my digital setting circles project for quite some time now. Yeah, I’m slow. At any rate, it’s just about ready for prime time, but I could use some beta testers to give it a whirl. (See below for a link to the download.)

What’s new, you ask? Well, I rewrote the thing, basically. It still bears some resemblance to the old driver, but it also now includes syncing and slewing capabilities, and an upgraded interface for performing the alignment process.

The picture above is of the alignment screen. Instead of being presented with a list of stars like before, you can now select alignment stars graphically by constellation. Hopefully this will streamline the alignment process.

The next picture shows the screen that appears when you tell your software to slew your telescope. Obviously, your telescope will not magically grow motors for slewing. The screen gives you visual feedback as you manually push your telescope tube toward your intended target. You push the tube until both numbers read zero, at which time your telescope should be pointing at your target.

This picture shows the setup dialog for the new driver. It’s not much different in content from the old driver, with the exception that there is now a checkbox for reversing the altitude encoder ticks. You should not check this box until you have found that no other combination of settings will result in a successful alignment. If the old driver has worked okay for you, you will not need to check this box.

You can download the new driver installer here. You can have both the old and new drivers installed at the same time, so make sure you select the correct one in the ASCOM chooser dialog box. If you need a refresher on ASCOM, visit my project’s compatible software page.

Please leave a reply below if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions regarding this new driver. I’ll be releasing a final version of the driver sometime in the next couple of months, after I’ve fully tested for compatibility and written some help files.