Using Stellarium to control an Ascom mount

[+Derbyshire Dave]

I know that Cartes De Ciel is the usual skymap program to use when connecting to an ascom mount, such as mine, which is an Sykwatcher HEQ5. The process would normally be to find a first star, press the "Synch" button, and then choose a target and then slew to it. When you are on that object, you can again synch, which will improve the accuracy.

 

BUT, I must say, I've never liked the chart in CDC, I much prefer the chart in Stellarium. Particularly as I had recently made my own landscape for Stellarium, which gives a real feel for what you are looking at, and, when things rise etc.

 

This is how my observing spot in the garden looks in Stellarium. I can see that the Pelican Nebula, which I'm imaging is just about up at the time of the screenshot. If anyone wants to have a go at this, let me know and I'll put together a post on creating your own landscape.

 

 

 So, I was wondering, how could I connect my mount to Ascom to allow me to click on an object in Stellarium, and slew to it directly...

 

I found this great video on youtube, and it just worked, it's only five minutes, so I thought I'd share it..

 

 

 

 

[+RonC]

Are you using the new version of Stellarium 0.20.1 Dave?

I would like to know how to get my garden etc on Stellarium please?

Cheers

Ron

Edited June 10, 2020 by RonC

[Bottletopburly]

I prefer stellarium but haven’t got round to changing from cdc tbh using APT and pointcraft I rarely use the planetarium software other than to browse though I would like to use my garden as background  that’s cool .

[+Derbyshire Dave]

42 minutes ago, RonC said:

Are you using the new version of Stellarium 0.20.1 Dave?

I would like to know how to get my garden etc on Stellarium please?

Cheers

Ron

Yeah, I'm using the lates Stellarium ROn, downloaded it yesterday. I'll put something together on doing the landscape thing.. maybe tomorrow...

[Clive]

If you've got the SW SynScan ASCOM driver installed on your PC, then it should just be a case of connecting the PC to the SynScan handset.  I use C2A and having installed the ASCOM driver in order to use PHD2,  I could also quite happily control my EQM35 using C2A.

[red dwalf]

been a fan of Stellarium for years, i find it much better to work with the CDC, especially now that you don`t need Stellarium scope anymore as it`s all integrated into newer versions of Stellarium, i also have not used a hand controller for ages, think i sold it a couple of years ago as i find EQmod so easy to use, all you need is the relevant EQmod cable and set up the EQmod driver to choose the correct com port and your off, one thing that windows 10 does though is that if you choose to update it of which there can be many updates, it will sometimes try to update the com port driver but it`s easy to just roll back the driver via device manage, i think the newer EQmod cables don`t suffer from this problem although i may be wrong.

luckily for me my mount is permanently fixed on a pier so i`m never that far off from the object i`m slewing too, but if a little out just a quick center on the screen and a ctrl 3 and it`s synced.

i`m sure a tutorial on how to setup a landscape will be well received Dave.

[Bottletopburly]

4 minutes ago, red dwalf said:

i think the newer EQmod cables don`t suffer from this problem

Not if they are FTDI chipset rob 

[+Derbyshire Dave]

25 minutes ago, red dwalf said:

been a fan of Stellarium for years, i find it much better to work with the CDC, especially now that you don`t need Stellarium scope anymore as it`s all integrated into newer versions of Stellarium, i also have not used a hand controller for ages, think i sold it a couple of years ago as i find EQmod so easy to use, all you need is the relevant EQmod cable and set up the EQmod driver to choose the correct com port and your off, one thing that windows 10 does though is that if you choose to update it of which there can be many updates, it will sometimes try to update the com port driver but it`s easy to just roll back the driver via device manage, i think the newer EQmod cables don`t suffer from this problem although i may be wrong.

luckily for me my mount is permanently fixed on a pier so i`m never that far off from the object i`m slewing too, but if a little out just a quick center on the screen and a ctrl 3 and it`s synced.

i`m sure a tutorial on how to setup a landscape will be well received Dave.

OK, I'll do that Rob

[red dwalf]

i thought that was right, mines an older model, works ok but windows 10 does try to change it even though i have not asked it too.

Microsoft for you

[+Ibbo]

Funny thing is I don't like Stellarium much prefer CDC even though I do did use Stellarium in the planetarium.

[Allan the Plumber]

I’ve been doing this for years I’ve set up landscapes for home, Kelling as I tend to have the same pitches Red and Blue fields, I also did one for Wymswold dark site but only set up once there and have done a few for fellow astronomers mainly the ones that have left the forum lol

one thing I would say make sure your cardinal points are correct I’ve been running my home landscape slightly off North and the wrong elevation and this meant I was targeting targets  that hadn’t risen above my gardens horizons (waiting for targets to rise over roof )