INDI Gemini/Gemini2 Driver is is included by default with INDI Library v1.0+. Under Ubuntu, you can install it via:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install indi-bin
This driver control Losmany Gemini/Gemini2 mounts either via USB connection or Network.
Current features are:
To utilize the driver, you must align the mount before connecting the INDI driver.
To connect to Losmandy Gemini mount from a PC or a device like Raspberry PI, use a Losmandy RS232 to USB cable. The driver shall detect all available serial ports on the system and attempt to connect to each one of them until it can establish connection to the mount. To disable this behavior, turn off Auto Search option. When turned off, the mount will only connect to the designated port and it will fail is no connection is established. It is recommended to use a serial mapper to assign permentant desigations to serial devices.
To connect to the mount over the network. Make sure your PC/StellarMate is on the same subnet as the mount. Under the Connection tab in the INDI Control Panel, click on the Ethernet button and then enter the mount IP address and port. The default UDP port used by Gemini is 11110. Click on UDP to set the port type to UDP. To save the settings, go to Options tab and then click Save configuration.
Before starting the driver, power the mount and make sure it is looking at the celestial pole with the weights down.
There are three startup modes:
Select the appropiate startup mode before connecting depending on the state of your mount.
Once Gemini is online, it loads mount and parking settings if they exist. Its location defaults to the celestial pole unless a custom parking position is set previously.
The main control tab is where the primary control of Gemini takes place. To track an object, enter the equatorial of date (JNow) coordinates and press Set. The mount shall then slew to an object and once it arrives at the target location, it should engage tracking at the selected tracking rate which default to Sidereal tracking. Slew mode is different from track mode in that it does not engage tracking when slew is complete. To sync, the mount must be already tracking. First change mode to Sync, then enter the desired coordinates then press Set. Users will seldom use this interface directly since many clients (e.g. KStars) can slew and sync the mount directly from the sky map without having to enter any coordinates manually.
With respect to meridian flips, the mount performs a meridian flip on a GOTO-command when within 2.5 degrees of the safety limit. You can set a GoTo limit with the handcontroller, meaning that when past this limit, the mount performs a meridian flip. If set to 90 degrees, it flips on a GoTo command at any positive hour angle. However, to be safe, it is recommended to set a hour angle at for instance 0.2 hours to be safe. Refer to the Gemini manual pages 69-70 on setting the GoTo limit.
The parking setting defaults to Home position but can be changed to Startup or Zenith as desired.
Home defaults to CWD but can be changed by user through the handcontrol. Unpark wakes the mount up in the same position as parked.
Four tracking modes are supported: Sidereal, Lunar, Solar, and King.
Under the options tab, you can configure many parameters before and after you connect to the mount.
If a dome is used in conjunction with the mount, a policy can be set if parking the mount or dome can interfere with the safety of either. For example, you might want to always park the mount before parking the dome, or vice versa. The default policy is to ignore the dome.
Under motion control, manual motion controls along with slew speed, move speed, servo precision and PEC are configured. Some features are only available on higher firmware levels. Features which are not available will not be displayed in the UI.
Time, Location, and Park settings are configured in the Site Management tab.
issues
There are no known bugs for this driver. If you find a bug, please report it at INDI's Github issues page
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