New toy!

[sbooder]

Hi All,

                just got my new toy, a BT2EQ6 from Shoestring.  It is an unnecessary luxury but I like it.  I have played with it over the weekend and it seems to perform faultlessly.  I had an interruption while slewing the first time I used it, but since then it has not put a foot wrong.

Call me sad (and maybe I am) but I sat and watched it track (an imaginary Jupiter) for 3 hours last night, in the comfort of our spare room, and it did not lose connection once.  I will add that I was accompanied by Nick Cave & wine while staring, so I was not too bored.

I am hoping to do a little more photography this year (not a lot, I still prefer eye at the EP), so I want to cut down on as many cables as possible.

I am testing its range today.  I have an idea in my head to keep the laptop indoors while still communicating with the BT2EQ6...more on that later...if it works?

[sloz1664]

Hi Sbooder,

I have been using my eqmod bluetooth for over a year now. Never had a problem connecting and running. Works faultlessly.

Steve

[Astroscot2]

Id be intereted in this if they did a version for the EQ8, As you say another cable not to worry about.

[sbooder]

Id be intereted in this if they did a version for the EQ8, As you say another cable not to worry about

Would the BT2EQ5 work with the EQ8?  Not sure if the RJ connectors are the same?

[Chris]

That's a great product, the first I've heard of it as a bit of a luddite.

[sbooder]

I promised you more later if what I had in mind worked....drum roll.......It did!

OK, as you may have read on another of my posts, I have the mount running trough the BT2EQ6 with EQMOD/EQASCOM and have my PC connected to a tablet using TeamViewer.  The reason I held back in saying if this would work how I wanted was the range of the Bluetooth receiver in my laptop.

Well, I had two items on order to try and resolve the range issue, and they were a good quality Bluetooth dongle and a 5m USB cable.  The idea was to run the dongle out of the house and in a straight line to the mount and within a 10m range.

And yes it works, and works really well.  So I am now ready to run the scope by tablet outside while having access to all the software I need to use, while that software and PC are safe and free from dew inside the house.

Yippee!!

[Carina Lass]

Nice one.

just doing much the same thing using teamviewer.

Observatory is 75 metres down the garden, so I have a notebook running phd2,cartes du ciel, apt and eqmod. This is in turn connected to my laptop in my bedroom by cat5 crossover cable.

Teamviewer gives me control of the notebook and thus the scope.

still doing testing and tuning, but getting very accurate go to.

Cloud is my biggest problem.

Being where I am is very prone to onshore warm wet air which forms cloud right over my house...... arggggh!

[sbooder]

Nice one.

just doing much the same thing using teamviewer.

Observatory is 75 metres down the garden, so I have a notebook running phd2,cartes du ciel, apt and eqmod. This is in turn connected to my laptop in my bedroom by cat5 crossover cable.

Teamviewer gives me control of the notebook and thus the scope.

still doing testing and tuning, but getting very accurate go to.

Cloud is my biggest problem.

Being where I am is very prone to onshore warm wet air which forms cloud right over my house...... arggggh!

If nothing else, it fills those nights with rubbish skies with something to play with.

[Carina Lass]

Last night was good.

Going to process this morning

[sbooder]

I now have the last little bit of the setup in place.  I found with the iPad, my great big chubby fingers were not accurate enough, so I bought a stylus and boy has it made a difference.  I can now be pin point with my commands.  Photo below for comparison.

[leemr]

Id be intereted in this if they did a version for the EQ8, As you say another cable not to worry about.

Would the BT2EQ5 work with the EQ8?  Not sure if the RJ connectors are the same?

The BT2EQ5 does work with the EQ8, I have that setup. Only problem I have is with Windows 8... it's a bit tricky. I found a process that works but I basically have to go into the device services list, disable the service and re-enable it before I can start using it. Nothing to do with the EQ8 / BT2EQ5 combo though, just a Windows 8 special.