From: "KirkusMcGurkus" <kirk@stenvall.net>

Date: November 9, 2011 11:03:23 AM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: LX90 Fork Mount or CGEM Handcontroller?

Thanks so much for your help. Sorry I haven't replied sooner. So a GPUSB it is.

When I (used to) post photos on forums I belong to I'd always give Astro IIDC the credit as my guiding software (capturing software for planetary photos). Although, photos with my old (now gone) set up and inexperience might have done your sales more harm than good. ;-)

I have a friend who used to guide (actually struggle with guiding is more like it) with a PC and assorted software and he was always amazed at how well my Mac and your software handled everything. Of course he wasn't amazed enough to switch.

Anyway, thanks again for everything.

-Kirk

--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Milton Aupperle <milton@...> wrote:

Hi Kirk;

On 4-Nov-11, at 12:30 PM, KirkusMcGurkus wrote:

Hi Milton,

I'm still planning my new mount/scope purchase and keep coming up  

with questions.

Can I use Astro IIDC with Meade Alt/Az mounts such as the LX90 ACF?

For guiding no. Not unless it's using an optional Equatorial wedge  

($200+) so that it's running in a Equatorial mode. Doing AZM control  

is a major PITA (Pain In The A**).

Also, I know that I can use it with a Celestron CGEM via A  

Shoestring GPUSB, but do you know if I can bypass the GPUSB and go  

directly to the Celestron hand-controller? I did this previously on  

an LXD75 (didn't need the GPUSB).

No you can't. The Celestron / Skywatcher etc. mounts that use the  

NexStar Protocol only support "GoTo" moves and do not support  

arbitrary slewing.

The LX based mounts (like your LXD 75) support arbitrary time based  

slewing, which works just fine.

The issue is that to move a Celestron / Skywatcher mount, you first  

read the current location, then compute your offset in RA and Dec  

coordinates and then tell it to "GoTo" the new coordinates. It simply  

does not have the precisions to move the mount to sub arc second  

locations and it's also very slow to respond too (read coordinates -  

wait - write coordinates - wait - repeat and rinse).

The direct connect via the ST4 port and the GPUSB or the GPIO to ST4  

board (for PGR Cameras) solves the latency issues and gives direct  

control of the motors.

I'm just trying to get my ducks in a row before purchasing anything  

and, like I've said in the past, I'm so happy with, and experienced  

at using your software, I want to build my new equipment around it  

if at all possible.

Cool.

Thanks for the years of wonderful support!!

Glad it's working for you. Now if we could only convince the "I use a  

Mac for Astronomy people - but the truth is they run Windows software  

in emulation mode all the time and may as well just buy a PC instead  

of a Mac" crowd, then I'd have much better sales numbers.

PS to the Group:

Is anyone interested in a  Tutorial / guide of how to import the  

Simple Table Photometric Light Curve data that Astro IIDC generates  

into "Plot"? I have a template "plot" file all set up to handle JDN  

data on the horizontal axis and the magnitude stuff on the vertical  

axis. I directly import the files into this Plot template, delete a  

few data columns and my graphs are pretty much ready to go in a few  

minutes without needing to put the data in a spreadsheet or other data  

manipulators.

My work flow to process 6 hours of asteroid data taken at 25 second  

intervals (2.4 gigabytes or 894 frames) to apply darks, flats, field  

de-rotation and then Photometric data reduction is about a 10 minute  

process on my i7 Mac Book Pro. It takes about 30 seconds to import and  

arrange the data in Plot and then maybe 5 minutes to  generate the  

data and smoothed curves before data labeling. So I have my  

Photometric graphs done in 30 minutes from start to finnish.

Milton Aupperle