From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: August 25, 2009 1:58:14 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Autoguiding Gotonova USB?


Hi Tim;


I'd want to have one of those units here for testing and need the company that makes it give me all the information on how to talk to it (including command codes).


And I have strong reservations that it will be any good for guiding, especially if it's really just a USB to Serial converter (from an engineering standpoint,. that's really silly to limit yourself to serial port speeds). Serial devices tend to have really poor response times as they are running at top speeds of 9600 baud or slower.


If they require a long command sequence or are forcing you to read / write request over it, you get pretty horrific delays.


Most serial protocols  also can not handle multiple command requests at the same time either, whereas using a GPUSB (which is just a glorified switch box) with an ST4 port works just fine.


Milton Aupperle


On 25-Aug-09, at 11:55 AM, doobisary wrote:

Milton:


I recently added an iOptron Gotonova goto upgrade kit to my Vixen Super Polaris mount (http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/2459781/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/all/vc/1).


The goto is great!  I love the iOptron HC, as it has a multi-line display that doesn't require the user to wait for text to scroll across a small screen.


The HC has a USB port on it, that according to the folks at Carinasoft is essentially a serial-USB converter inside the HC internal electronics (since fewer PC laptops are being made these days with serial ports, this makes sense).  Folks tell me that the gotonova can't be autoguided, but I wonder if that's necessarily true (or if it is, if it's something that can be "corrected" if they become really popular for astrophotographers)?


TIA,

-Tim.