Unless I'm misreading the ASCOM website, it looks like you can make TheSky use ASCOM via an intermediate layer...

http://ascom-standards.org/FAQs/TheSky.htm


Grant

--- In guide-user@yahoogroups.com, Bill J Gray <pluto@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Pete,
>
> That sounds basically like what I'd expect to happen, unfortunately.
>
> WARNING: I dunno much about how TheSky handles telescope control. I'm
> a little surprised that ASCOM isn't an option. You might ask Software
> Bisque about that (or maybe someone here who knows more about TheSky can
> reply?); maybe the option is just "hidden" somewhere.
>
> However, it sounds as if when run TheSky directly controls the telescope,
> it grabs the COM (serial) port. And as you say, this means it "does not play
> well with others". Inexplicably (to me), ASCOM suffers the same fault. I've
> asked about this issue, but have never gotten an answer that I understood.
> The impression I gather is that it's just not a priority for ASCOM folk.
>
> Were ASCOM's shortcoming in this area to be fixed, it would help a lot of
> people... but you would not be among them, because you can't get ASCOM to work
> within TheSky anyway. The only fixes I can see would be:
>
> -- Persuade Software Bisque to support ASCOM (in which case you can set
> up Guide to use ASCOM as well; ASCOM will continue to hog the COM port, but
> that won't be a problem anymore, because both Guide and TheSky will be able
> to access the scope through ASCOM.)
>
> -- Persuade Software Bisque to release the COM port when not in use. After
> which, Guide and TheSky will play well with one another. You might run into
> some issues if you had Guide's 'telescope indicator' function running -- the one
> that shows a little symbol on the chart indicating the current telescope
> location. I think there would be some chance that Guide would attempt to
> access the COM port at just the same moment that TheSky did, and it's
> conceivable that some sort of uncensored heck would break loose. But maybe not.
>
> -- Bill
>