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GTS is a serial communication (to computer) handset device that was originally made by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!