Star Tracking System Issue – Servo Not Moving Despite Stellarium Data Connection

[essasalas]

Hi everyone,

I’ve built a star tracking system using:

2x MG996R servo motors

Arduino Mega 2560

GY-91 (MPU-9250) IMU sensor

ESP8266 (for WiFi communication)

The system was tested successfully by the technician who assembled it, but when I tried it at home, the servos didn’t move, even though:

Stellarium’s remote control plugin is running (http://localhost:8090).

The website version (localhost:8090/api/objects/info?format=json) receives data when I change planet positions in Stellarium.

Wireshark shows no connection to port 8090 from the ESP8266.

Setup:

All devices (PC, ESP8266) are connected via Android hotspot.

The technician programmed the ESP8266 to work with this setup.

Problem:

Data reaches the web interface, but the servos don’t respond.

No communication detected between ESP8266 and Stellarium via port 8090.

Has anyone faced a similar issue? Could it be a network configuration problem (e.g., localhost not accessible from ESP8266)? Any debugging tips?

[gzotti]

What communication do you expect to happen via RemoteControl HTTP interface? Does your Arduino speak the RemoteControl API? This API allows control of Stellarium with other means than the GUI, but has no telescope control in its repository. You could build a manual (or motorized) star pointer device that inputs its pointing direction to Stellarium to point into the direction of the rotated star pointer as detected from some directional encoders (I'd call that the Astrodicticum Arduinense and would like to see such system published under MIT license for astronomical outreach).

The dedicated component of Stellarium for "Guiding a telescope-like device and pointing it to a celestial object" is the Telescope Control plugin. Your Arduino control software may communicate with the simple Stellarium Telescope Control protocol shown in Figure 16.18 of the User Guide, or may have implemented LX200 or Celestron NexStar protocols, or anything supported by ASCOM or INDI, but I can only speculate on what you or your technician have developed.