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If your telescope has a Go to facility ( even a manual push) and a port to connect to a computer you will be able to attach the scope to the computer. and drive it in some way, If it only has encoders you may only be able to display position on the computer
The port for a cable to connect to the computer will almost certainly be a RS232 port. That means it will need a cable either hand made or purchased to connect to the computers RS232 port. Most of the modern computers, particularly lap tops, these days do not have a RS232 port or PCMC1 slot so it will be necessary to use a USB to RS232 converter. The reason for perservering with RS232 for communication is most likely the limited distance that USB can be used over.
Most of the commercial planetarium programs have a computer control menu on which you can select the already installed drivers and immediately have control (or indication) of a telescope that has been aligned. For the programs that do not have a that driver installed the ASCOM interface can usually be used to add further drivers. The ASCOM driver is an external driver program that can recieve and send information to a telescope and computer if there is no existing controller.
Stellarium is a good free planetarium program that can be used on a limited number of telescopes directly but there is an ASCOM driver to suit the HEQ5. The full instructions for doing this are in an article in the Projects & Articles section I believe. There is also a program called Stellariumscope that can be used with Stellarium and ASCOM to give a much expanded menu of control features.
Barry
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