Re: ascom for GUIDE?

ssb73q Jan 2, 2004

Hi Steve, be careful of what you wish for. Starry Night uses ASCOM
for scope drivers. Yes, that includes a generic LX-200 scope driver
that is compatible with my WinCTC goto controller. HOWEVER, the ASCOM
generic LX-200 interface doesn't support a scope pad. That makes
Starry Night useless for any practical telescope work. I need that
Guide scope pad for precise positioning of my scope. ECU also has a
nice scope pad, but that's not ASCOM either.

Be careful about what you wish for.

Regards,
Richard


--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, "Steve LaFlamme" <Astro-Geek@a...>
wrote:
> Bill,
>
> I am a long time user of Guide and the fact that you are here
on
> this newsgroup so often speaks volumes for YOU!!
>
> I want to put in my vote for ASCOM communication for Guide as
The
> Sky just doesn't cut it for me as my astro software of choice.
> I cuurently use The Sky to move the scope, but Guide is my far
> favorite.
>
> Please have an ASCOM/Guide download ready for my birthday
> (February 8th). Hehehe.
>
> THANKS for a great product!!
>
> Steve
>
>
>
> rhope th--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, Bill J Gray <pluto@p...>
> wrote:
> > Hi Don,
> >
> > It's at least a "possible" item:
> >
> > http://www.projectpluto.com/future.htm#ascom
> >
> > As is mentioned there, the big advantage of ASCOM would be
> that it
> > would enable me to stop worrying about the various ways in which
> scopes
> > are controlled, expanding the range of supported scopes a bit.
> (Not
> > enormously, since so many scopes are already LX-200 or Celestron
> > compliant. And I can't simply throw out the scope control code
I've
> > got; some scopes supported in Guide, such as encoder-based
> systems,
> > are not supported by ASCOM. But it would help.)
> >
> > Jim, what Don is talking about is the fact that when Guide
> needs to
> > control a telescope, it accesses the serial port, then releases
> it for
> > use by other programs. A lot of less "civilized" software grabs
the
> > serial port when it starts up, then doesn't release it until
it's
> shut
> > down. So while software X is running, software Y is unable to
> access
> > the telescope.
> >
> > The approach used by Guide is helpful in some limited
conditions
> > (ones where all the programs agree to behave nicely, and to not
> grab
> > the serial port more than they have to), but it's not really
> sufficient
> > in some cases. In theory, if Guide works through ASCOM, more
of
> these
> > "conflicting software" problems could be resolved.
> >
> > -- Bill