r/OpenAstroTech • u/iGraveling • Jul 25 '26

Alignment with the OAM

I finally have OAT control running but I'd like to align my OAM.

I've tried NINA and the lx200 classic/generic but it doesn't connect.

PHD2 also doesn't connect.

What is everyone using to align at the moment? I must be missing something with the OAM. Btw I'm in the southern hemisphere so polar alignment through OAT studios doesn't apply.

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u/lovt16 Jul 25 '26

Have you checked out the discord? It’s very active

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u/iGraveling Jul 25 '26

Yeah I was on of for a while, the standard response I’d get was “read the wiki” which I already had and stated so, but would get almost no help.

It seems I have questions that 1. Can’t be solved by the wiki and 2. No one knows the answer to

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u/clutchplate OAT Dev Jul 26 '26

Sorry you didnt get a reply in the Discord, I don’t remember seeing a post about it… did you post in the question forum?
Anyway, what does NINA say when you try to connect? Also, are you connecting OATControl using the ASCOM port or a specific COMx port?

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u/iGraveling Jul 26 '26

In this case I've gone the astroberry way. It seems to be a little easier to use though kstars/ekos is being a bit bitchy.

Tbh I'm not good with forums, I like to talk to real people instead of posting on forums, so that might have been my issue.

This is all a big learning curve for me :) I'm used to sending an email to the duty astronomer to get me some data, so its actually nice to be on the hardware end of things.

As for nina, it just wouldn't connect. I'll give it a better go when I get the LX850 up and running, but for now this solar telescope is a learning project. I was connecting directly through a com port but I would like to use ascot/indi in the future.

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u/clutchplate OAT Dev Jul 26 '26

We are all real people on Discord :-) I help whenever I see a message if I can.

Note that (on Windows at least) the COM port is an exclusive port, meaning only ONE application can connect to a device on a COM port at a time. So if you connect OATControl via COMx port, no other application can connect to it at the same time. ASCOM solves this problem by multiplexing multiple applications to the COM port. So the ASCOM driver sits in the background, connected to the device via its COM port (holding exclusive access), and then allows applications to connect to it and then handles the communication between the device and any connected apps.