Telescope Reviews: EQMOD what can't I do unless I buy EQDIR?

A little history is in order here. The EQMOD project started back close to four years ago, when the SynScan firmware was V2.05, and had many opportunities for improvement/upgraded capabilities and features. At that time, one could use the hand controller in conjunction with a planetarium program if one identified the unit as Celestron 5/8 and used the serial to RJ11 cable. No firmward upgrade was available, and there were many issues with in onboard databases plus twitchy alignment behavior. The mount had, and has, such awesome capabilities for the price that EQMOD came along, bypassing the hand controller and using a straight serial cable but needing the RS-232 to TTL voltage reduction as provided by EQDIR, or one of the other commercial applications, or modifying the hand controller.

After EQMOD was in full swing of development and advances, the V3.01 upgradable hand controller came along. In the V3.21 upgrade, PC Direct Mode was added; the capability of passing through the EQMOD/EQASCOM commands was added to the hand controller with the ability to use the hand controller's directional arrows. If it worked, this meant no pointing device was needed with the computer running EQMOD. This, however, was not very reliable until V3.24 firmware.

So, you can use the hand controller with a planetarium program and the serial cable that came with the SynScan, any version (V2.05 as Celestron 5/8, V3.xx as Celestron 5i/8i), but limited to simple GOTOs and position display, using the alignment as performed in the hand controller.

Or, you can use EQMOD/EQASCOM with EQDIR or some other tool to drop the voltages and drive the mount through a computer, no hand controller, and use some sort of gamepad or pointing device to steer the mount.

Or, you can use EQMOD/EQASCOM hooked to V3.24/3.25 version SynScan hand controller running in PC Direct Mode, and use the hand controller as the steering device. No EQDIR is necessary, no gamepad, just use the serial cable that comes with the mount that is used to update the firmware. The downside is that some applications using EQMODLX, like satellite tracking or Meade DSI, do not see th hand controller and need the pointing adjustments fed into EQMOD to tweak the posititioning/timing in real time.

What does EQMOD do that makes it worth the effort?

1. The alignment model is fanatastic and can use up to 100 points rather than the 1-,2-, or 3-star alignments. Even with 1 or two points, if you setup is orthogonal the pointing accuracy on GOTOs well exceeds the behavior of the SynScan HC;
2. Satellite tracking (with some additional freeware);
3. Automated Mosaic imaging;
4. Spiral search scans at the touch of a button;
5. Use of programmable buttons on wireless game pads to drive the system;
6. Direct NMEA GPS input for setup location and time;
7. A variety of park/unpark options;
8. User setable, variable track rates;
9. Setable and ignorable safety and meridian crossing limits;
10. Too many more to list; as Uncle Rod advises, get thee to the wiki.

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Jim

A Bad Night With A Telescope
Beats A Good Night Doing Anything Else
Tectron 18" Truss Dob/Sky Commander DSCs, "Derrick"
Meade 10" LX-5 SCT/Atlas-G "Ol' Blue Eye"
Orion 90mm refractor,
Meade 10" Starfinder Newt/JMI NGCMax DSCs,
Celestron 10x50 Ultima Pro