Since early December, I’ve been working on setting up a new telescope in the observatory. This has taken longer and been more involved than I expected. Rick W’s comment to me that they key to observing productivity is not changing your set-up is certainly true.
I’ve had two major hardware issues, with electronic parts being found defective after they successfully passed testing at the factory. With the help of Jerry K, I’ve been able to connect my ST-10 to the new scope. I’ve created what I hope is a better wiring set-up on the mount. And I’ve learned some things about software.
The defective parts were quickly replaced by the vendors. They also helped with the ST-10 connectivity. The software I figured out on my own. There are two software lessons.
Lesson 1. Removing ASCOM Components
ASCOM maintains its own registry of components. Some software does not remove the ASCOM registry entry during an uninstall. You can find orphan components by running ASCOM Diagnostics, part of ASCOM Platform 6.0. These orphaned components caused me problems with new components from the same company. To remove the orphaned components, use the ASCOM Profile Explorer. Find the component in the list and delete it. Simple, once you know what to do. Only a couple of hours and a mountain of frustration there.
Lesson 2. Locking the View to the sky in The SkyX Pro.
One of my biggest complaints in using the SkyX is that when I was centered on an object, it would move out of the field of view, as if I was looking through a alt-azimuth telescope. The only way I could stop it was to stop the clock. Not a good idea if you are attached to a telescope. I’ve finally learned why and how to get my preferred view to work. The clue is that the default orientation is terrestrial sphere which mimics how the sky would look from Earth. In fact, the stars do move by at the sidereal rate. What I want is what the SkyX calls the celestial sphere orientation. This keeps the stars in place on the screen. To select this view use Orientation > Celestial Sphere or alt-2. Now I am not grumpy with the SkyX.
As a final note, I’ve had a lot of support from PlaneWave and some alpha automated focusing software. I’ve also had no trouble with the latest release of FocusMax (3.6.0.71), downloaded from the files section of the FocusMax Yahoo! group.
Happy New Year!