I know it feels wrong but is WIFI good?

[badboybubby]

Seen a few setups where the Astronomer sits in the comfort of his/her lounge stargazing from the laptop over wifi. Now lets be clear, I don't intend on doing this from the off as I feel I need to freeze my 4rse of a few time to serve my apprenticeship as such, but I'm interested in knowing what equipment is needed to do this?

b3:)

[brantuk]

There's been a very interesting thread discussing this recently worth a good read through:

http://stargazerslounge.com/astro-lounge/147700-disappointed-dso-views-i-have-answer.html

If it leaves anything unanswered then come back here with follow up questions by all means

[cgarry]

I have never done this for normal observing, but I often do this when capturing Saturn or Jupiter with a webcam. It is nice to be sitting in the warm while your kit is outside doing the hard work in the cold.

Chris

[brantuk]

I just trail a usb lead into the caravan/awning when I'm at a star party - but that's more for snapping pics than watching video. Seen it done though - Bern at Modern Astronomy had a nice demo using wifi at Kelling piped to a monitor in the back of his van. Scope was about 5 yards away

[Tim]

It would all depend on what you wanted to achieve.

Many of us control our mounts via a free program called EQMOD, which links to the mount via USB, and so into your computer.

Once my kit is guiding and focussed, I just go to bed, set an alarm for however long I think the clear spell will last / until the mount does a meridian flip, and then go to sleep while it does it business with the cameras. At the side of my bed a laptop is networked to my little obsy so I can check on it from time to time. The only thing I cant do from bed atm is focus and open/close the obsy roof, might get round to that one day.

And yes, I did serve my apprenticeship with frostbite, all nighters etc etc