Control of EQ6 with Stellarium

[ZeroID (Brent)]

OK, I'm dumb, can't quite get my head around this EQMOD, ASCOM stuff.

In the article on controlling mounts is the statement:

Note: Stellarium comes with some built-in Telescope control software

• Celestron NextStar or compatible telescope
• Losmandy G11
• Meade AutoStar
• Meade ETX 70
• Meade LX200
• Sky Watcher
• Wildcard Innovations Argo Navis

Does this mean that EQMOD et al is not necessary to control the mount ? If not what cables, bits etc are required ? Does Stellarium already incorporate the necessary drivers etc for the listed mounts ? I have the Skywatcher EQ6 Pro Synscan with GoTo etc but long term I want to be able to control it remotely by PC.

What options are there? The whole EQMOD/ASCOM System seems fraught with hiccups and patches and a steady stream of 'How do I fix ..' in the discussion group. I'd like to get a basic system up and going and then grow it from there once I understand and can manage that.

I have plenty of options for various PCs and hardware and eventually it will be a permanent setup so it is worth getting to grips with the beast.

Any info or links to good explanations much appreciated. Even the Stellarium site is not much help with connections and cabling information

[hikerbob (Bob)]

Brent, EQMod provides a means to control the mount directly without going through the hand controller. If you are not using EQMod (or any alternatives I don't know about) then you connect an extra cable to the hand controller and back to the computer (and probably via a serial to USB adapter).

Both have their uses, I use EQMod via bluetooth and love it for the reduced cabling but found doing the alignment a pest with the computer not right at the telescope. Last attempt I had a dodgy wireless gamepad so I couldn't control the mount while using the finderscope.

Bob

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

I also use Bluetooth and very successfully. I use a PC dongle Class 2 Bluetooth and have tested range to 50m (ran out of road to test further)

I also have a gamepad too, having a few problems with slew speeds but otherwise still works well. Haven't spent much time getting down to the core of the issue.

[Barrykgerdes]

The EQ series of mounts when fitted with a Synscan controller can be controlled directly through a serial port by Stellarium.

Stellarium at the moment has two generic control protocols, the Meade and the Celestron Nextstar.

The control by Stellarium is only rudimentary in so far as it can read the telescope position coords and write a set of coords to the telescope and then execute a "goto"

Direct control of an EQ mount can be executed via a contoller refered to as the EQMOD that directly controls the stepper motors, bypassing the Synscan. Stellarium can only control this drive via the third party interface ASCOM. ASCOM then has an interface to the EQMOD.

The Meade controller has quite an extensive range of commands that can be accessed by a computer.

The Argo Navis responds to a sub set of these commands and has a set of its own.

The Gemini uses a comprehensive subset of these commands an a suite of its own.

Celestron has a much smaller range of commands that can be accessed by computer but adequate for most users who write their own software.

These additional commands are utilised by some third party programs interfaced with ASCOM.

The Synscan uses a very basic subset of the Celestron protocol and can only read the coords and a send a set of coords with a goto.

I have been experimenting with computer control of the Synscan and some extra commands can in fact be executed synthetically. Also the latest version of Synscan has an undocumented feature in the utilities menu called PC Direct Mode. This feature allows ASCOM and EQMOD to drive the mount without the special hardware interface cable.

Barry

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Cheers for that Barry. Makes more sense now. Now I see why the EQMOD path is taken by many. Long term I'll have to go that way I guess, this is just the planning stage at present.
I'll download the software and controls and investigate further.