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Mojo.LA
member
Reged: 03/29/08
Posts: 41
Loc: Monrovia CA
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Hi, I have a ten-year-old Astro-Physics 900QMD (Quartz Micro Drive) mount (non-GOTO), which has encoders built in.
I've never connected it to digital setting circles, and haven't needed them for visual astronomy.
Now I'd like to be able to hook up the mount to Skytools on a laptop and use it in "push to" mode for a little photography.
Any recommendations?
Cheers,
Mojo
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--
Morris Jones
mojo@whiteoaks.com
Old Town Astronomers http://www.otastro.org
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rmollise
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/06/07
Posts: 1662
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Quote:
Hi, I have a ten-year-old Astro-Physics 900QMD (Quartz Micro Drive) mount (non-GOTO), which has encoders built in.
I've never connected it to digital setting circles, and haven't needed them for visual astronomy.
Now I'd like to be able to hook up the mount to Skytools on a laptop and use it in "push to" mode for a little photography.
Any recommendations?
Cheers,
Mojo
Sky Commander
NO bloomin' warp factors just deadly accuracy after a simple alignment.
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Uncle Rod
Watch for Rod's New Book:
Choosing and Using a New CAT--coming in December!
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jeroenhmg
newbie
Reged: 06/16/08
Posts: 4
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Or you could go wireless and use BETI from Astro Devices (www.astrodevices.com) with Skytools through ASCOM.
Best Regards,
J.
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Mojo.LA
member
Reged: 03/29/08
Posts: 41
Loc: Monrovia CA
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Quote:
Or you could go wireless and use BETI from Astro Devices (www.astrodevices.com) with Skytools through ASCOM.
Nice device. Wish my laptop had bluetooth. 
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--
Morris Jones
mojo@whiteoaks.com
Old Town Astronomers http://www.otastro.org
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Mojo.LA
member
Reged: 03/29/08
Posts: 41
Loc: Monrovia CA
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So suppose I got a JMI B-Box serial interface. I know it will talk to TheSky. Is that my only choice?
I usually use Skytools 2 for my planning and planetarium. I was hoping for something with a smaller memory footprint than TheSky to provide the ASCOM device for Skytools.
Mojo
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Morris Jones
mojo@whiteoaks.com
Old Town Astronomers http://www.otastro.org
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astrodevices
Vendor-Astro Devices
Reged: 10/26/07
Posts: 11
Loc: Sydney, Australia
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You do not need TheSky. All you need is 'Real Time' plug-in for your SkyTools 2 in order to use ASCOM. Also you can get a USB Bluetooth dongle very cheap these days from eBay.
Regards, AD.
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www.astrodevices.com
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Mojo.LA
member
Reged: 03/29/08
Posts: 41
Loc: Monrovia CA
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So you're saying there's an ASCOM device that will talk to a B-Box, besides TheSky? Can you point me to it, or is it built into ASCOM?
I thought the existing ASCOM devices would need to talk to a full-featured DSC computer that provides R.A. and Dec, and not just encoder counts. Something that will align and calibrate the encoders.
Cheers,
Mojo
--------------------
--
Morris Jones
mojo@whiteoaks.com
Old Town Astronomers http://www.otastro.org
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astrodevices
Vendor-Astro Devices
Reged: 10/26/07
Posts: 11
Loc: Sydney, Australia
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Yes, that is right. Any software that supports ASCOM platform is capable of working with BBox-type interface which sends only encoder counts.
If you use the latest version (5.0) of ASCOM then you need to install the ASCOM platform from http://ascom-standards.org/ and download Intelliscope driver by following a link from http://ascom-standards.org/Downloads/ScopeDrivers.htm .
If you use the previous version of ASCOM (4.1) then the Intelliscope driver is a part of the ASCOM installation.
You can also look at the following page for a description of basic steps of setting up BETI (which is just wireless BBox) with ASCOM:
http://www.astrodevices.com/Support/BETI_ASCOM/BETI_ASCOM.html
Regards,
Astro Devices.
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www.astrodevices.com
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Mojo.LA
member
Reged: 03/29/08
Posts: 41
Loc: Monrovia CA
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Fantastic -- thank you for the detail!
Mojo
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--
Morris Jones
mojo@whiteoaks.com
Old Town Astronomers http://www.otastro.org
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