Controlling a scope-telling Stellarium where you are?

[cyborg421]

Hi there, Right, I've got all the leads, I've selected the right COM port and I can get the scope to move around by using Stellarium. One last problem how do you align the scope so that when you move it in Stellarium the telescope will go to the right place in the Sky? I can set Lat and Long but how do you tell Stellarium which direction in the sky it is pointing to? Thanks Simon

[Arushin]

Hi Simon,

Not quite sure what you mean...

As long as you have lat & long set correctly all should be fine.

The only other thing I can think of is to show the Cardinal Points in Stellarium. Once you have aligned the scope it should all match up pretty well.

Hope this helps!

Regards Tony

[Veracocha]

Is it polar aligned before connecting?

[cyborg421]

What I mean is that I could set lat and long correctly but point the telescope so Stellarium thinks its pointing North but it is in fact point east. therefore whereever Stellarium skews to it would be inaccurate.

I have a Skywatcher Synscan goto. I can align it using 2 star align, what I want to know is how do you link Stellarium so it recognises that's what you've done.

Simon

[Mikea]

Align scope as normal. Connect to pc running Stellarium - job done!

[cyborg421]

Cheers for that. As simple as.

Simon

[Neil McRae]

Simon I have over the past 2 weeks been playing with stellarium and the scope mounts. What I use is EQ5 Synscan and installed EQMOd and Stellarium Scope.

Stellarium ONLY slews the mount you cannot align Stellarium. What I did was

1 Align mount to point North and balance it. Plug in RS232 cable to SynScan.

2 Mount set in Alt to 51deg

3 Make sure EQMOD and stellarium all have the same lat and long

4 Connect EQMOD and connect. Connect also Stellarium Scope.

5 On EQMOD Unpark the scope

5 Using Stellarium select Sun (Scope is not on the mount) and press ctrl +1

The mount then slews to the sun (pretty accurately) and on EQMOD select Solar track. I have left it tracking for over an hour and all looks pretty good.

I believe what I still have to do is 3 or N point align using EQMOD and then use stellarium to GOTO.

I think the synscan alignment is not of any value as you are using the Synscan ONLY to connect to the mount and as soon as you select PC Direct on the Synscan it is out of the equation.

Got a wireless gamepad yesterday and customised the buttons on it for use with EQMOD. Still got to do the alignment process on the night sky

Hope this helps

Neil

[tony69]

good evening hope you dont mind me jumping in after reading this thread i have a question iam getting a s/w 150pl goto can you tell me what leads i would need to conect to my laptop please .

[Veracocha]

What mount do you have or intend to get?

[tony69]

sorry it comes with eq3.2 pro synscan

[Veracocha]

Then this I believe is what you want. If you have only USB connectors on your laptop then you will need a USB-serial converter. If you search synscan cable on ebay there should be a plethora of suppliers.

Skywatcher 3m serial cable for SynScan controllers | eBay UK

[martin_h]

If you do a 2 or 3 star align, and start from the "home" position all will be well, all Stellarium does(I think) is send RA and DEC coords to the mount so if you are star aligned it will get you there.

[tony69]

thankyou for this my laptop also has serial port will it be better to use usb ,

will the stellarium programe help me find planets ect by cicking on them?

[Veracocha]

thankyou for this my laptop also has serial port will it be better to use usb ,

will the stellarium programe help me find planets ect by cicking on them?

Yes, I learnt a lot from Stallarium as to what stars I was looking at and choosing for alignment. For the cost you might as well go for both and see which is easier to configure; strangely my serial port is a stinker to configure but the USB is fine.

Edited May 24, 2011 by Veracocha

[Neil McRae]

I am trying to understand why the term "star aligned" is being used for Stellarium. If I am reading the documentation correctly Stellarium Plugin ONLY sends slew commands and receives mount positions.

I believe the mount needs to be accurately "polar aligned" and starting from a "Home Position" can slew to an objects coordinates.

When the SynScan is put in "PC Direct Mode" the "star alignment data" which was previously done does not count for anything as it is acting only as a connection to the mount from Stellarium thereby the alignment data it contains is not used.

If I am wrong please let me know. I only write this so that it avoids confusion

Neil

[chrisshillito]

Neil,

You are correct that Stellarium knows nothing about a mounts alignment and that it simply sends and receives data to/from the mount drivers using RA/DEC coordinates. For a mount to be accurately positioned at an object the mount must have been previously aligned.

You are also correct that once a mount is placed in PC-Direct mode the handcontroller no longer provides the pointing model or exerts any control over the gotos. The EQMOD ASCOM driver (EQASCOM) provides all that functionality instead. EQASCOM is able to use syncs issued by a planetarium to build its pointing correction model and this may be where the confusion lies - it might appear as though the planetarium is "Star aligning" the mount but in reality all the work is being done in the driver. Indeed in the particular case of Stellarium and ASCOM the planetarium doesn't even know that syncs are being issued on its behalf by stellariumscope.

Chris.

[A40farinagolf]

Tagged onto this old thread as it partly help me to achieve what I wanted.

Whilst cosy and warm in the dining room I've managed to instruct Stellarium to index my CEM25P mount to selected items via a StarFi wifi link and touch woods it seems to work very well.

The quandary I have is that Stellarium did not know where the actual scope was pointing, however it still showed a telescope circle label on the night sky display.

The software then issued commands based on a starting position in the sky that it believed my scope was actually pointing at.

How do I align Stellarium to the actual starting position? or am I missing a trick?

 

 

[GavinC]

Have you aligned the mount first?  Having just got my mount and Stellarium talking to each other nicely over a wifi link (V19.3, so direct ASCOM support from Stellarium) I align the mount using the synscan pro app on my PC and then open Stellarium and the scope is then shown pointing correctly to the last alignment star.

[JonCarleton]

I have the SkyWatcher 10" with Synscan.  You initialize, and align, then you are ready to go.  As has been said, it is important to start with the scope level and pointed to True North (not magnetic). My SynScan hand unit sometimes defaults to East longitude instead of West (I live in the US, so West is correct).  It is really easy to miss the little E instead of W on that line and it will result in some really wacky results from Stellarium if you align things with that bit wrong.....er...so I hear (whistling).