12 replies to this topic

[Duif]

My first thread on Cloudynights, I hope I’m posting in the right place here. I could not find any forums dedicated to just Skytrack, but saw that CN had a lot of topics about the software. However, none were able to answer my question, from what I could find.

I have been dabbling in observing and imaging satellites that are not as widely known and popular as the ISS. At first I used Skywatcher’s Satellite Tracker, using Previsat to obtain .csv files for passes. This was proving to be very inefficient though, especially with Previsat bugging out on me every time I tried to add new TLEs.

That’s when I was recommended Skytrack. Being hesitant to learn a new software at first, after doing some testruns, I quickly found that this software will be much more efficient for imaging several satellites over a session.

I am working with a Skywatcher GoTo Dobsonian 300P telescope. I connect the mount to GreenSwampServer through USB, that works perfectly fine. In Skytrack I connect to GreenSwampServer through ASCOM. From there, I can select any satellite, and make the mount start tracking. I can also park the telescope. The whole calibration process went flawlessly.

The issue I’m running into, is the fact that Skytrack won’t allow me to stray a certain distance from the satellite, while tracking. When I manually correct slewing during a pass, it will stop me after a second, and then slew back to where it thinks the satellite is. I imagine that this is highly undesirable, as I will be working with not at all widely known satellites, that will not always have very up-to-date TLEs. If I will be tracking such a satellite, Skytrack is not going to allow me to centre the satellite, as it’ll keep trying to slew back to where it thinks the satellite is, by the information from the outdated TLE.

I assume this is caused by some settings related to the continuous tracking. I am guessing it’s the Advanced Continuous Tracking Parameters setting. I changed some settings around, but nothing stops Skytrack from undoing my slewing actions.

I hope someone is able to help me out here, thanks in advance.

Duif

[bosh60]

To refresh the TLE file, click the tab [Orbital Data/Info] and [Orbital Data].  Click the button [Download File]. 

If you need to adjust the tracking, only use the buttons in SkyTrack on the main satellite tracking screen on the [Adjust Tracking] tab.  

If after using a fresh TLE file and tracking still seems far off, double check the site setup in Skytrack. And of course, you need to use your regular star alignment procedure before using Skytrack.  Hope this helps.

[Duif]

To refresh the TLE file, click the tab [Orbital Data/Info] and [Orbital Data].  Click the button [Download File]. 

If you need to adjust the tracking, only use the buttons in SkyTrack on the main satellite tracking screen on the [Adjust Tracking] tab.  

If after using a fresh TLE file and tracking still seems far off, double check the site setup in Skytrack. And of course, you need to use your regular star alignment procedure before using Skytrack.  Hope this helps.

Hi Brent, thank you for your answer. I’m aware of how to update TLEs, the problem lies in the fact that these TLEs do not get updated as often as for example TLEs of the ISS. In those cases I’ll have to do with a TLE that’s for example 2-5 days old.
 

Today I will test around with using the buttons in Skytrack to manually correct slewing. I was hesitant to use those at first, since for both the left and the right joystick (I’m using a gamepad), you can only set one speed for the perpendicular and timing adjustment. I will be tracking the satellites at 5000mm, so I feel like only being able to use one set slew speed can be hard to manage. 
 

Will Skytrack stop trying to take over slewing control if I use the integrated buttons? Will it allow me to stray off from what it thinks is the correct path of the satellite?

[Duif]

I have tested more today and I'm running into more and more problems. I wanted to try to do what you said and only use the correctional buttons in Skytrack, for timing and perpendicular. These work when I use my mouse to click them on screen, but I will not be doing that while actually tracking a satellite, as I have a guidecam and my main cam to pay attention to, and keep in focus on my laptop screen. When I try it with my gamepad though, it does not work. I guess Skytrack, for some reason, does not recognise my gamepad. All it does is it keeps spamming the coarse perpendicular adjustment arrow endlessly. Weirdly enough though, it only does this when I assign the coarse perpendicular adjustment to one of the joysticks in the Setup. My gamepad works flawlessly in both GSS and Synscan Pro, both recognise is at as an Xbox controller, so I don't think the gamepad is the problem.

 

I am very disappointed that I can not simply normally manually slew while Skytrack is tracking a telescope. The Satellite Tracker app allows this. I'm still not 100% clear on if this is a problem on Skytrack's end, or mine. But currently I am unable to properly use the software, even though I would really love to because apart from the fact that it keeps counteracting my slewing actions, it seems very intuitive.

Edited by Duif, 08 May 2025 - 10:28 AM.

[ButterFly]

Make sure your gamepad is disconnected from other software that may also be looking at it (such as SynScan Pro and GSServer).  If multiple things are responding to the same gamepad, that can cause conflicts.

[bosh60]

It sounds like your gamepad/joystick might need calibration (zeroed properly).  Try calibrating it in Windows. (Controllers send values to the software, and depending on the threshold each software uses, a miscalibrated controller may still function correctly or not)

 

Not being able to manual slew with SkyTrack is not a "problem" or bug, its part of the design.  The Satellite Tracker app somewhat "blindly" sends a series of tracking rates at the mount with no monitoring, so you can manually slew and it carries on.  SkyTrack continually checks the satellite position and the mount position and will adjust the rates to recenter.  This works very well on a well aligned mount and slight adjustments can be made within the software. But when you manually slew, it will in fact counteract that as you are experiencing. 

 

If you are beginning at this, attempting at a focal length of 5000mm will be frustrating. Workout the issues and get practised first with a wider field of view.  

 

Let me know how you make out getting the controller issue resolved. 

[Duif]

Hey, I was able to resolve the gamepad not working in Skytrack, and just did some tests in the field on actual satellites. I would just like to clarify that I’ve imaged satellites at 5000mm before no problem, with altaz slewing options available during the pass. But with the timing and perpendicular control adjustments I was struggling very badly to even keep the satellites centred in my e-finder. It did not feel very intuitive to me. Especially with both joysticks only having one set speed for either direction. 
 

Earlier today I was looking for a version of Skytrack that did not have the Advanced Continuous Tracking Parameters option (saw that 1.5.4 doesn’t have it in one of your videos), as I suspect that to be counteracting my manual slewing actions in GSS. But I sadly found that older versions than I believe 1.9.0 are not available to the public. Is there any chance I could get my hands on an older version anyway?

[bosh60]

Earlier today I was looking for a version of Skytrack that did not have the Advanced Continuous Tracking Parameters option (saw that 1.5.4 doesn’t have it in one of your videos), as I suspect that to be counteracting my manual slewing actions in GSS. But I sadly found that older versions than I believe 1.9.0 are not available to the public. Is there any chance I could get my hands on an older version anyway?

Previous versions were hard coded at 100% and 90%.  It would not change what you are hoping it to. Let me think about a workaround to disable the corrections so that manual slewing is possible. 

[ButterFly]

Hey, I was able to resolve the gamepad not working in Skytrack, and just did some tests in the field on actual satellites.

 

What was the resolution?
 

 

But with the timing and perpendicular control adjustments I was struggling very badly to even keep the satellites centred in my e-finder. It did not feel very intuitive to me. Especially with both joysticks only having one set speed for either direction.

 

That sounds like a rather large FOV.  What is the FOV of your efinder?  Which particular satellite was that far off?
 

[Duif]

Previous versions were hard coded at 100% and 90%.  It would not change what you are hoping it to. Let me think about a workaround to disable the corrections so that manual slewing is possible. 

It would be a blessing if manual slewing became possible. In the meantime I ended up still using Satellite Tracker after all, and using Previsat to generate .csv files. But I used Skytrack to see which satellites were coming up. I must say that the software is impeccable at that task, that is giving you an overview of what satellites are coming up with a quick view of what the pass will look like exactly. The trial is very generous too. I will probably be paying for a license at the end of the trial, so I can at least keep using it to plan satellite passes.

 

Apologies if I sounded like a knobhead earlier, I'd been breaking my brain over trying to get Skytrack to work for a day, it was getting to me.

 

 

What was the resolution?

It's a bit of a weird story, bear with me. In short I'm using a bit of a scuffed way to use a Wii U Pro Controller to slew my telescope using GSS when I normally image planets. The software that I use makes Windows recognise the controller as an Xbox 360 controller, so it will work seemlessly with GSS and Synscan Pro. The issue was that apparently Windows considers Skytrack "older software", and somewhere in the hard to reach depths of Windows 11 there was an option where I could pick which controller should be prioritised in older software, and the Xbox 360 controller (Wii U Pro Controller in disguise) was not selected. When I did select it, it worked.

 

 

That sounds like a rather large FOV.  What is the FOV of your efinder?  Which particular satellite was that far off?

The FoV of my e-finder is 25.7'x14.4'. I'm tracking and imaging classified satellites, these rarely have TLEs of less than day old.

Edited by Duif, 08 May 2025 - 08:59 PM.

[ButterFly]

The keyholes are definitely fun, and super low at times.  They get boosted often though, so TLEs for them have a much shorter than ordinary lifetime.  I agree that manual slew would be helpful here, but not neccisarily as combined with SkyTrack.  If the TLEs are no good, the TLE are no good.  The adjustments in SkyTrack are much more intended for outdated (as opposed to gone-through-a-boost and now nullified) TLEs, at worst, and simple time, location, and alignment errors, at best.

 

If it's within your ken, combine all sky with the nullified TLEs (while low) to get an updated TLE.  That will get you a much better baseline to let SkyTrack's adjustments do its thing.

 

Just make sure your gamepads aren't being picked up by more than one piece of software at once.  Just because one thing can now see it doesn't mean that everything else no longer can!  If something else picks up the gamepad XInput, and tries to do its own slew at the same time, that can be getting you the overly large motions you're seeing.  SkyTrack sending a small correction value, then GSS also sending a much larger slew, around the same time.  Look through logs to see whether more than one thing is trying to slew at the same time.

 

As an aside, GSS wasn't working terribly well for alt/az mode for my AZEQ6 the last time I tried it months ago.  I switched over to SynScan Pro and haven't tried GSS since.  How is GSS doing in alt/az mode lately?

[Duif]

As an aside, GSS wasn't working terribly well for alt/az mode for my AZEQ6 the last time I tried it months ago.  I switched over to SynScan Pro and haven't tried GSS since.  How is GSS doing in alt/az mode lately?

The beta versions of GSS have started to support AltAz mounts for a few months now. My mount had some issues with GSS still, but I’ve been talking to the developer of GSS and he has since worked it out. Works like a charm now with my Dobsonian. 

[Duif]

@bosh60, another thing that I know would be greatly appreciated in the Skytrack software by many who do serious closeup imaging of satellites would be autoguiding on satellites. I know that a software is being developed by Astronomy Live, it can read TLEs and start tracking satellites just like Skytrack, and on top of it it can guide on satellites. However, it is a python program without executable and only supports ASI120MM sensor size. There’s also very little ASCOM support. Autoguiding in Skytrack would make the software from already amazing to even better.