red dwalf

has anyone got a photo of the front of these shooting down the barrel on these webcam adapters, are they baffled on the inside ?

where`s waynes adapters gone ?

just been on the site "billetparts" and it says product not found ? has he sold them all ?

spc 900 nc, old toucam pro 2, anything with a ccd chip inside and not a cmos chip

the new version of stellarium is very easy to setup, no need for ascom drivers anymore, it`s all included in the program, worked a treat on my celestron and skywatcher mounts.

good luck

i used to have problems aligning the mount until i bought a polor scope for the mount and now i only align polaris with it and go to quick align and it`s almost spot on,

might be worth looking at getting one if you can

that might be the problem Brett, well done this might be the fault,

not all serial to usb adapters work properly when used in this fashion

when i used a serial to usb adapter cable i had to install a bit of software that came with the adapter to make it work o.k.

also have you tried changing the com port numbers ?

device model should be the same settings as mine as we have the same mount, but have you tried changing the serial port settings to something other than com 1 ?

here`s what i do using 10.3 or 10.4 version of Stellarium, there is now no need to find and load any Ascom drivers, Stellarium will now do all of it for you.

1. load Stellarium

2. click on configuration on the left hand side with your mouse pointer

3. then click on plugins

4. then click on Telescope controls

5. at the botom click on "load at startup"

6. click configure

7. click configure again

my settings are,

Stellarium, directly through a serial port,

start connect at startup,

serial port = com 1

device model = Celestron Nexstar (compatible)

when all this is done close down laptop,

start mount and do all the settings as you would done for a normal operation using the hand controller i.e. polar aligning and setting date and time and so on,

plug in your rs 232 cable to the handset and pc or laptop, fire it up and start Stellarium, it should now be o.k.

hope it helps

Rob

very good, was apprehensive about ordering over such a long distance, but arrived safely 6 days later, also paid by paypal so no giving details to someone in another country

would like to add my weight, for what it`s worth, and give opticstar a big thumbs up, i`ve had a number of dealings with them over the year and always first class, e-mail to say when items have been dispatched and so on, if you contact them via e-mail for advise they usually answer within a few hours and nothing has been to much trouble, brill service and good prices too.

first class dealer !

well done, great when i works, took me best part of the day when i first installed 10.2 with all the software, i.e. ascom drivers and stellarium scope,

rename the stellarium scope cross to something funny and it looks great wizzing across the monitor

great, so i should be ok to delete all my ascom programs then, will that be ok as i1m not sure.

cheers rob

mounts need to be aligned and ready with the date, time etc otherwise the program will not be able to operate the mount, the new version of stellarium has a built in telescope control so i`m not certain if you need to download all the ascom software anymore before it will work, maybe someone else can help on this matter.

but i`ve tried it and once correct mount setup selected it worked great, but i already got all the ascom software on the laptop, maybe someone can try it without the extra software to see if it works ok.

cheers Rob

how or where did you hide the cables for the webcam ?

very neat

glad it worked for you Nick,you`ve got me thinking that getting an adapter might be a waste of money now, but still i love it ! and as i`m always using Stellarium to combine the two is a great idea.

mine also takes a second or two before slewing, but i think getting a serial to usb adapter for the handset should hopefully make it quicker as usb is a faster connection for sending infomation, but i have not got round to trying it as yet

is there anything i could look for myself, I take it I`d be looking for scratches ?

very decent of you Steve offering to have a look but i`m away in Scotland for family holiday so can`t make it this year, was planing to go with DOC, i.e. Mick as he lives close to me but dates have clashed.

do you think a little washing up liquid would damage the coatings ? I hope not. i thought it was the mirrors that had the coatings on.

what do you use to clean the front glass plate on an SCT scope ?

i`ve tried a little washing up liquid on a sponge and screen cleaner for my LCD tv, but they still seem to smear even when i use a soft towel to dry it, driving me mad.

wife says i never take this much time and effort when doing the house windows !

cheers Rob

would also recommend getting a serial to usb adapter cable, by plugging this into the usb port of your computer it should supply the imformation faster to the mount than serial cable.

Hope it helps, took me the best part of the day to get it sorted, couldn`t find anything on google as to a step by step formula for doing it so was trial and error but now seems to work well although I haven`t tried it in the real world yet as still no clear sky around here.

What a day I`ve had trying to get Stellarium to work my goto mount, it`s been so hard that I thought I would write it down incase anyone else would like to do it and save themselves alot of time if you don`t have a clue what you are doing like me, so here goes.

1. Install Stellarium 10.2 from Stellarium webite.

2. Go to Astronomy - StellariumScope and install the Stellariumscope software.

3. Now the hard part you need ASCOM drivers to be able to use the software, go to the ASCOM website and download ASCOM PLATFORM 5 to your desktop.

4. Now you need the drivers for you mount, look in telescopes and mounts on the left hand side of the webpage, click it and download the drivers for your mount to your desktop.

5. Go to your desktop and double click on the ASCOM platform 5 to install it.

6. You might be asked to install Microsoft. NET Framework 3.5 setup, click yes and it will install. then click on the ASCOM platform 5 again to make sure it has installed.

7. When it has finished click on the ASCOM driver for your scope on your desktop.

8. Restart P.C.

9. Click on Stellariumscope and at the top click the driver from list for you scope and tick connect.

10. plug in you mount to the P.C. and load up Stellarium and hopefully you can now click on a object and your scope will slew to it.

just a note this is for window XP but should be much the same for other operating systems.

Congrats for the team at FLO, ordered a Tal 3x barlow yesterday at around 3 o`clock, arrived this morning at 9.30 fantastic service keep it up. by the way anyone thinking of buying a TAL barlow i can recommend them, so solid in build and heavy compared to some models.