chrisowen66

Hi all, I'm hoping someone can assist with this issue.....I have a Skywatcher 10" Dob AZ Goto, My handset recently died so I'm trying to now use Stellarium to control the scope, mainly to slew to objects. It's all set up - RS232 cable + adaptor, latest version of Stellarium, scope powered up....I've gone through all the Stellarium configue settings and all seems ok. The only seeting that was confusing was whether to select "Skywatchet Synscan AZ Goto" or "Skywatcher Synscan V3 or later" , so I've tried both. Com port is selected. Configure window even reported 'connected' when i exited. But then no scope reticle appears in the Stellarium sky display. And nothing happens when I select an object and presss ctrl + 1. Is it possibly because I've not done a star alignment? But how would I do that without a handset? Thanks!

Thank you so muh for your replies gents. That has made things a lot clearer, except for one point - AstroGeek, you explained very well that the mount does the sidereal tracking automatically (which seems ideal). But in the next reply, Peter says that tracking is a function of the handset (which I'm hoping not to use anymore as mine has packed up), which seems to contradict what Astro-Geek said. Any clarification would be appreciated, as I'm still confused as to what performs the tracking and how it is activated. Thank you.

Thanks for replying. It's really appreciated as I'm very new to all this Could you explain more about what you mean here? What 'Sidereal Tracking'? Is this is function of something? What I wish to achieve is to have Stellarium send slew info to the scope, the scope slews, and then I want the scope to track the object so it stays reasonable in the field of view. So after the slew info is sent, and the scope slews, what then actually does the tracking? Does Stellarium keep nudging the scope to track the object? How does it work? Thank you.

Hi all, In addition to Stellarium (on my laptop) sending goto info to my Sywatcher Dob, does anyone know if it actually then tracks the object? I'm looking into using Stellarium to control my Dob, but I feel the wi-fi adaptor and Synscan app is a better option if its tracks. I only need tracking for visual use, it doesn't have to be astrophotography standards of accuracy. Thanks

Hi all, I have a Skywatcher 10" Dob. Due to the handset packing up recently, I've now decided to either use Stellarium to control the scope, or the Synscan app/Wi-Fi adaptor method. Because it's cheaper, I want to try Stellarium first, but I have two main questions which I hope someone can please answer. Once Stellarium has slewed to the object, will it then be able to track it? Or do you need to quickly 're-slew' to get the scope to re-centre on the object? I've tried to google this, but can't find the answer. And also, how do I perform a star alignment if I'm using Stellarium? Does the software take you through an allignment? Many thanks.