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Skywatcher API released

mcrossley

By mcrossley
in The Astro Lounge

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James

James

Posted
Posted

Aha... now will that enable Mac developers to write software to control Skywatchers mounts directly without the need for ASCOM (Windows only), I wonder... EQMOD or equivalent for the Mac appeals to me :D

James

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JamesF

JamesF

Posted
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MEH, C#, why Oh why not something more portable like C++ :D (yes I know Mono, but I am not going to learn yet another OO language based on C, C++ and Java are enough)

It does seem almost wilfully obtuse. Still, at least it's not in PHP :p

The DLL is only 15kB though. Assuming they won't release the source, I wonder how hard it would be to reverse engineer?

James

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NickK

NickK

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I've had a look at this already - no good for windows, mac or linux!

1. It means you can set a RA/DEC and tracking - great but no PEC or alignment.

2. EQMOD needs to be able to quickly adjust tracking, it will impact it's ability to offer the better PEC/alignment.

3. C# really blocks anything but Windows as cross platform C# libraries (ie MONO) really don't integrate properly with OSX or Linux in terms of GUI experience etc.

AOSX is making progress and has direct EQ mount control just as EQDIR does :D

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

Posted
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I've had a look at this already - no good for windows, mac or linux!

1. It means you can set a RA/DEC and tracking - great but no PEC or alignment.

2. EQMOD needs to be able to quickly adjust tracking, it will impact it's ability to offer the better PEC/alignment.

3. C# really blocks anything but Windows as cross platform C# libraries (ie MONO) really don't integrate properly with OSX or Linux in terms of GUI experience etc.

AOSX is making progress and has direct EQ mount control just as EQDIR does :D

GUI experience is not my main worry, functionality is. Mono always lags C#.

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inksmithy

inksmithy

Posted
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MEH, C#, why Oh why not something more portable like C++ :D (yes I know Mono, but I am not going to learn yet another OO language based on C, C++ and Java are enough)

If you have C, C++ and Java, then you will find C# an absolute doddle. I'm a java dev myself but for various reasons, I'm having to write something in C#. It's only very slightly different from Java - the hardest thing is battling through Microsofts version of javadoc.

Alan

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

Posted
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If you have C, C++ and Java, then you will find C# an absolute doddle. I'm a java dev myself but for various reasons, I'm having to write something in C#. It's only very slightly different from Java - the hardest thing is battling through Microsofts version of javadoc.

Alan

NO WAY! It's not cross-platform portable. When I develop code, it tends to work on Windows, Linux, Solaris, OS-X, Cray Unix, Irix, etc. C# does not do that.

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riklaunim

riklaunim

Posted
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>>> a = BasicApi.Mount_Skywatcher()

>>> print a

<BasicApi.Mount_Skywatcher object at 0x000000000000002B [basicApi.Mount_Skywatcher]>

>>>

LOL, seems IronPython on Linux can use that :D If I would be able to map RS232-USB adapter on some virtual COM port...

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inksmithy

inksmithy

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NO WAY! It's not cross-platform portable. When I develop code, it tends to work on Windows, Linux, Solaris, OS-X, Cray Unix, Irix, etc. C# does not do that.

Oh no, it isn't cross platform, but writing it is as simple as I said it was.

Don't put me down as a microsoftian, I'm not one. But if you rememberthat c# was developed as a direct competitor to Java, then what I said makes sense.

Alan

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

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Oh no, it isn't cross platform, but writing it is as simple as I said it was.

Don't put me down as a microsoftian, I'm not one. But if you rememberthat c# was developed as a direct competitor to Java, then what I said makes sense.

Alan

Fair enough, the development of C# has actually lead to improvements in Java. As my main development platform is Linux, C# is not an option.

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ismangil

ismangil

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Fair enough, the development of C# has actually lead to improvements in Java. As my main development platform is Linux, C# is not an option.

I am sure it should be fairly easy to decompile and see the protocol directly.

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riklaunim

riklaunim

Posted
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Fair enough, the development of C# has actually lead to improvements in Java. As my main development platform is Linux, C# is not an option.

SkyWatche probably wasn't thinking much about Linux that much when releasing the API. They just made their lives easier by releasing for in general cross platform .NET/Mono. And even that allows to do something. Linux astrophoto and similar apps are nearly non-existant. wxastrocapture closed source and badly packaged (if you don't have distro they used - won't work due to libraries version mismatch). qhyimager also is hard to make it working, also closed source. Some 3rd-party QHY apps tend to use deprecated libraries and can't be compiled on some distros as those libs aren't there/fail to compile now.

OpenPHD could probably use this to control the mount without indi :D

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  • 4 weeks later...
OzDave

OzDave

Posted
Posted

I've looked at this too. I like how they call it open source, but in fact it is only the demo programs that are open source. The actual API library is supplied as a compiled C# DLL. And the only advantage of that is being able to decompile it and get back the original source code if you want to see how it works it more detail.

Also, I'm not entirely sure if there is some unwritten law that prevents any astronomy technology from being developed and released in a truly cross-platform way, but Skywatcher are not really helping the matter here.

In any case, if anyone is looking for Mac software to control their mount, AOSX should support this soon as NickK says in a previous post. I have also posted another thread today about "EQMod for Mac" in which I will be releasing in the next day or so a standalone Mac application for controlling your mount until AOSX is released.

David

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