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Stellarium operated goto mounts


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First you will need this http://www.astrosurf.com/astropc/cartes/prog/cdcbase276.exe

Then you will need this http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/prog/Ascom_plugin.zip

Then you will need the ascom platform ASCOM - Standards for Astronomy . Also you will need the updater 5.5 on the same page and the drivers for you mount. Tell me what mount you have and I will help you look if you like.

Regards

Brett

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Guest metroman

Hi,

I have just downloaded the latest version of Stellarium, and I have now managed to get it to work with my Explorer 130P.

Martin

Skywatcher Explorer 130P SynScan AZ GOTO

Helios 10 x 50 bins

Meade ETX-60AT

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I have overhauled the telescope control pages in the Stellarium Wiki, they might be worth a look:

Telescope Control - Stellarium

This guy has written an instruction on using Stellarium, StellariumScope and ASCOM to drive HEQ5/EQ6 equatorial mounts:

Stellarium Telescope Control with a HEQ5/EQ6 - IceInSpace

Hi,

I have just downloaded the latest version of Stellarium, and I have now managed to get it to work with my Explorer 130P.

Martin

Skywatcher Explorer 130P SynScan AZ GOTO

Helios 10 x 50 bins

Meade ETX-60AT

Should I add it to the list of supported devices? ;)

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Just a point regarding running Stellarium in Windows Vista. My problem is that I simply can't get either versions 0.10.3 or 0.10.4 to work on my PC. The program just crashes. There have been a few threads on this but I can't seem to resolve the issue.

I am running ver 0.10.2 fine, though, with full scope control via ASCOM. Anyone else still having problems with the newer versions?

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Just tried Stellarium/StellariumScope/Ascom for the first time and I have to report that it worked first time. Im running it on an Acer Aspire laptop with Vista Home Premium SP2. I havn't tried it in anger yet (as its dayight) but it all loaded and when asked slewed the mount in the right direction and what looked like the correct position.

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Okay, I have followed every word that has been printed on this thread in how to get Stellarium to operate the telescope, for weeks I have tried every routine of what to install first and last, what to startup first and last, all to no avail!!! Have spent money on all things usb and serial still to no avail. I even tried CdC, nothing, a dead telescope :) .

Today has been no different, 3 laptops to try, different configurations but zilch. This evening I decided to delete the driver to the USB/Serial adapter and see what it can pickup off the net. What a suprise, I ended up not with a serial port but a Motorola modem!!! I laughed at this and was about to delete it when I thought about it and realised that a moden was needed to communicate with the hand controller.

I fired up Stellarium and after ensuring I had the right serial port number I hit the button and lo and behold, THE TELESCOPE SLEWED TO THE GIVEN STAR, IT WORKED!! :(:D :D . So for all peoples still having problems with Stellarium and usb/serial port, see if installing the serial adapter as a moden will work!!! Sounds crazy but all I did was let the serial adapter find it's own driver.

Jim

Edited by The Sailor
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Brilliant Jim :( I'm glad you have it working, I bet your a happy man now !!! How did you search for the driver did you use windows auto or did you do a search yourself on-line ? I managed to find updated PL2303 drivers for mine although the originals still work fine.

Regards

Brett

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Thanks Brett, yes am a happy bunny :( , I was in Vista Computer Management and went into the properties for the serial port, deleted it and the driver, hit scan for hardware changes and the serial port came up, I hit the button to search the internet for a driver and when it finished the serial port had changed to a modem. I checked what it's properties was, serial port noted and carried on from there. Just check this morning and all is running okay.

As a matter of interest, the serial port is not listed in the hardware list. When the driver was being installed the old red box came up to say it was not certified but I hit the install button anyway. The following drivers are installed:

COMP_MDM.inf

Modem.sys

ser2pl.sys

Hope this is of help to those who still find problems, it appears that Windows seen the serial port, passed through and seen the modem in the Celestron Hand Controller and carried on from there.

Jim

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can anyone advice if it is of any use for CG-5 goto ?

being it goto mount, what is it the benefit of using Stellarium to control the mount?:(

I noticed that CG-5 requires accurate alignment to be able to track celestial objects with precision, which I must say fail to achive all the time :D

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can anyone advice if it is of any use for CG-5 goto ?

being it goto mount, what is it the benefit of using Stellarium to control the mount?:(

I noticed that CG-5 requires accurate alignment to be able to track celestial objects with precision, which I must say fail to achive all the time :D

It works just fine with a CG5 Resonator - as to your second question - good question lol - I have only ever used it once in anger to control the mount - I quickly got fed up with tripping over the flimsy cable - though at one level being able to touch the latprop screen and have the scope slew there directly was quite fun.

I suppose one advantage might accrue when trying to line up on objects that are not in the handset database or do not have identifiers in stellarium. I could probably have made use of that feature when asteroid or comet hunting recently.

But mostly I still stick to the handset if I am honest.

Can't say I have ever noticed problems in tracking though even with the roughest of alignments my mount has always been pretty good..

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Thanks Iris for the advice,

how do you align your mount?

am I doing something wrong? I usually use Polaris and align the mount and later the scope pointing them towards Polaris. For some (obvious) reasons solar planets leave my field of view in 3 to 4 minutes:( . It is very frustrating ...

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i used to have problems aligning the mount until i bought a polor scope for the mount and now i only align polaris with it and go to quick align and it`s almost spot on,

might be worth looking at getting one if you can

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Thanks Iris for the advice,

how do you align your mount?

am I doing something wrong? I usually use Polaris and align the mount and later the scope pointing them towards Polaris. For some (obvious) reasons solar planets leave my field of view in 3 to 4 minutes:( . It is very frustrating ...

I dont use a polar scope - I just roughly align the mount by looking at Polaris througth the boresight for the polar scope. I Make sure the mount is level within the tolerance of the bubble level on its base and do a two star align - I almost always use all four calibration stars in addition to the two alignment stars.

The only time I have had to worry about the scope drifting has been when observing Saturn at high magnifications of 300x+ - usually the mount tracks well enough to keep Saturn in the FOV for the 50 minutes or so that it is visible from my normal viewing position.

But even with the roughest of alignments i.e. only pointing more or less north and roughtly level it has kept its target well.

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