Planetarium programs to control goto scopes

anat · Post by **anat** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:13 am

Chris:

You may try Cartes Du Ciel which is a free well-known star map.
http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/index.html
It can control various scopes. You need to download ASCOM platform 4.1 first.
http://ascom-standards.org/downloads.html

It should work with your ETX in the same manner as TheSky. It is good to see how the system works before buying TheSky.

Anat

anat · Post by **anat** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:16 am

Arief:

I use Palm Planetarium with a Palm PDA to control my Argo Navis.
http://www.aho.ch/pilotplanets/
It works nicely and fast. Astromist can also do the job but it is quite slow on old machines. And I prefer the touch and look of Planetarium.

Anat

ariefm71 · Post by **ariefm71** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 4:39 pm

Hi Anat,

Neither one supports ASCOM.

Arief

anat · Post by **anat** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 6:10 pm

No, it doesn't support fully. But it sends some commands in ASCOM format. What functions in ASCOM do you want the PDA to do?

Anat

ariefm71 · Post by **ariefm71** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 7:00 pm

telescope driver interface v2.0 specifications.

mrngbss · Post by **mrngbss** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:31 pm

StarryNight 5 supports ETX.

I've used it to control the Nexstar5i, 80GT and CG-5 mount. Nice piece of software. Version 5 has fine control too.