stellarium and goto mounts

[wils07]

Do any of you use stellarium to guide your goto mounts and if so how do you connect your scope to your laptop/pc ? Do you use the same cable that updates the syncscan handset ....

Also is there a quick guide on how to sync the mounts to stellaruim as i have enabled the plugin that allows you to move a telescope but not yet connected my telescope.

Cheers Paul

[rll1288]

I have the HEQ5 Syntrek which allows me to connect to a laptop using a device called EQDIR. This takes the connection from the mount and converts to USB for the lap top.

to use Stellarium you need Stellarium Scope installed (which I believe you have ) and the ASCOM platform which there is a link through the EQMOD groups website (which I also use):-

EQMOD

This allows you to either use your controller with the mount (via ASCOM) or in my case I have linked an old XBox controller which then gives me full GoTo and controll over the mount.

once you have installed the above and gone through the setup, when you click on a point in stellarium you can then use Ctlr + 1 to slew to that point.

I hope that helps

Roy

[red dwalf]

i use the same cable that updates the hand controller, cream coloured cable with serial connecter on one end that plugs into the computer. if your pc hasn`t got a serial connecter then you can buy a serial to usb adapter, less than a tenner.

you don`t need to download stellarium scope anymore as the new versions of stellarium, 10.4 onwards have scope control built in, just need to click on the configuration settings in stellarium and makes sure you put a tick in the box which says load on start up

[wils07]

I have the serial - usb as i needed it to update firmware on the handset.

So i guess i have everything i need for it to work then

Well everything but good weather...

[dmahon]

To connect the laptop, I have one of these:

HitecAstro EQDIR adapter

But if I were buying now, I would probably get one of these instead:

USB2EQ6/USB2EQ5

which only came out in the last week or two and don't have the box in the middle of the cable anymore.

PS - CdC is far better with the mount (but doesn't look as nice as Stellarium, which is far better for someone who just wants a visual guide).