Celestron AUX driver does not detect mount ceasing to track due (possibly) to meridian flip

[stevecoh1]

Describe the bug The other night I set up my rig (Stellarmate Pro, Celestron AVX mount (GEM), etc.) to make 60-second captures of NGC_6946 over a 3-hour period from 2300 2024-08-19 to 0200 2024-08-20 local time (GMT-7hrs). This was set up using the Stellarmate App though, I imagine, the same results would have been obtained using KStars/Ekos directly.

The sequence ran to completion and shut itself down cleanly at 0200. 146 captures were made. However, while the first 69 captures showed reasonably good images of the target, the remaining 77 all showed streaks of light rather than stars, or the target. This was seen slightly on the 70th image, and progressively worse through the sequence.

Clearly, the mount had stopped tracking. My local astronomy club suggested that this was probably due to a meridian flip.

However, as may be seen in the attached log, no evidence of the driver having noticed the cessation of tracking occurred and the software continued to make captures, all of which showed streaks of light.

Noteworthy in the attached log:

The mount went through a few alignment iterations until finally achieving a satisfactory alignment on line 82117 of the log file at 2024-08-19T23:02:46.676 MST (between 2 and 3 minutes from the start of the job), when the state is recorded as "tracking".

[2024-08-19T23:02:46.676 MST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.mount] - New mount state for MF: "Tracking"

From that point there are no recorded mount state changes until 2024-08-20T02:00:03.679 MST, after completion of the job, when, as directed to the scheduler, the mount was parked (line 220990 of the log file).

[2024-08-20T02:00:03.679 MST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.ekos.mount] - Mount status changed from "Tracking" to "Parking"

I can confirm from looking at the rig in the morning, that the mount indeed moved to the park position.

To Reproduce Difficult to reproduce, but I am attaching relevant images and full logging of the session. To reproduce, one would have to define a sequence that would be known to encompass a meridian flip, with full logging, as I did. One would need to be using the Celestron AVX mount.

Expected behavior I am not sure what the correct behavior of the driver ought to be in such a situation, but at minimum I would expect something to be logged, if not shutting down the sequence altogether with an error message. But none of this happened.

Screenshots If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: Stellarmate OS
• Version: 1.8.4
• Driver version: official, as of 2024-08-19, not bleeding edge

Log Files log_19-43-16.zip