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Old 07-05-2010, 04:12 PM
adept22
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Cheap goto Kit Is it any good?

Hi all, i have been using a autostar setup on my eq3 mount for a while, and i now have a CG5 mount, I am looking at setting it up for goto funcationality, and in my searching i found this kit http://njnorth.en.alibaba.com/product/51938775-200018071/Auto_Goto_Star_Kits.html

Does anybody have an experience with this kit or know what the performance would be? it looks like it will just slip on nicely with no modiifcation required and it comes in at a low price of 377, which is considerably cheaper then anythign like the synscan setup.
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Old 07-05-2010, 04:46 PM
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wasyoungonce (Brendan)
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Hi Adept. I used a Gotostar (GTS) for quite awhile but have now moved on to a bigger capacity mount. I was quite actively involved with GTS so there is not much on it I don't know.

GTS is a serial communication (to computer) handset device that was originally made by Nj-Idea released in 2007. This product was then marketed and sold by Ioptron (mid 2008 onwards) who now sell it as a USB device called Gotonova (GTN).

Essentially there is little difference between the 2 products except slightly different firmware and some small keypad layout. They both do same thing. If you want to connect the GTS handset to a computer just use a USB to serial converter...works a treat although in most cases there is no need to do this.

If you can get a GTS for $377...brilliant especially if this comes with their GPS.

My thoughts on GTS..great unit...great handset, very easy to use an in fact a joy to operate. You can get it to do ST4 autoguiding (if you have a ST4 adaptor from iOptron). It's a servomotor system so it's a little noisy on "goto" slews but you put up with that...considering it's high slew rate (1024X).

Just do a search for my posts on GTS/GTN in this forum for more info on the system or see the below forums.

There are some on line forums, the original GTS forum and the newer iOptron forum. The old GTS forum is pretty much dead now days...spammers and people not putting in effort to make it work so that leaves the iOptron forum. Unfortunately this is pretty much packed with "cube" users who have little in common with the GTS/GTN.

There is a Russian forum and FAQ's..(FWIW) but they don't have any more info than what's covered in the original nj-idea forum.

There are still a few users around who use this system..it's just hard to find them. Tommy (user Kamayok3) is using a GTN. You might like to converse with him on this.

Anyway...good luck. If I can assist some more ..just ask!
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Old 10-05-2010, 08:39 PM
adept22
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Thanks for the info, How does the GTS or ioptron compare to the autostar as far as user friendliness goes? i find the autostar quite easy to use, are they both pretty straightforward /similar to?
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Old 10-05-2010, 09:48 PM
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wasyoungonce (Brendan)
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The multi line display of GTS is like chalk & cheese, just look at the LCD screen pics...you get the idea...a major step up. Navigating the menus & sub-menus is a breeze and choc full of info.. Read some of my documents I wrote (in the nj-idea & ioptron forums) on autoguiiding & connection to CDC using ASCOM.

I could never workout why this kit never took off. Probably because in USA they are similarly priced to the competition. But...the GTS is a modern 32bit system compared to the competitors. If you can get if for $377...."bargain".

The only draw back is IOptron are ...well shall we say...not the easiest company to get info from. I had to hound them...but I was one of the early users.

That said...I got it to autoguide (you need an interface device to convert ST4 to I2C commands, from ioptron, to autoguide. Search for my posts on this) and never had any issues with the system...apart from ioptron's reluctance to fix some firmware issues (all sorted now) as they were focused on the cube.

If you have a spare EQ5...to put it on...go for it.
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Old 11-05-2010, 01:52 PM
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AussieSky (Greg)
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I'm using the GotoStar kit on an EQ5. Its linked to my lappy using a serial to USB adaptor, and I drive it with The Sky6 using an Astro Physics driver with ASCOM.

Works great!
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