> James, you asked about NexStar support: the answer is that Guide 7.0
>ought to do that right now, when set up in "Ultima" mode. The NexStar
>and Ultima 2000, supposedly, use the same control language.

Excuse an intrusion from "the competition", but this isn't the case. As you
know, Bill, when you send a command to the Ultima, RA/dec coordinates have
to be "encoded" as a 16-bit value, and sent to the telescope as four hex
characters. The NexStar uses the same "encoding" scheme, but sends
coordinates to the telescope as a 2-byte "binary" value, rather than as hex.
In addition to this, before sending any command to the NexStar, you have to
send the telescope an "initialization" sequence, and wait for the correct
response.

As well as all these delights, there's the added problem that external
computer control on the N5 was very, VERY buggy on early version of the
telescope, so control software has to allow for things going wrong - eg, the
telescope never sending you back the "I've finished slewing" acknowledgement
that it should do.

The NexStar is NOT an easy telescope to support. I've got it "sort of
working" in SkyMap Pro, but I'm far from happy with it.

I'll let you get back to talking about Guide now :-).

Regards,

Chris
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Chris Marriott, SkyMap Software, UK (chris@...)
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