Stellarium

Ultima 2000 Telescope Control

Asked by Bert Schneider

Can Stellarium control a Celestron Ultima 2000 telescope, via RS-232 (via a USB to RS-232 cable)? I've noticed that ASCOM does not support the Celestron Ultima 2000, any more. Stellarium looks as if it can control telescopes, directly without going through a universal interface such as ASCOM.

Thanks!

Bert

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Bogdan Marinov (daggerstab) said : 		#1

Yes, Stellarium can control directly NexStar-compatible Celestron telescopes. But Ultima 2000 is not compatible with NexStar, isn't it?

I found a manual for Ultima 2000 that details its serial port control protocol and I think that I can adapt the existing NexStar code for it relatively easily. Are you willing to act as a tester?

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Bert Schneider (bertnpeggy) said : 		#2

Yes, the Ultima 2000 is not NexStar compatible. I downloaded the NexStar commands and they are not the same as the Ultima 2000. I use to be able to control my Ultima 2000 with Starry Night Pro, using ASCOM. But when I got a new laptop with Windows 7, I noticed that I had to upgrade ASCOM and ASCOM no longer supports Ultima 2000. Funny thing is that the Ultima 2000 commands are just ASCII character commands. There are a great deal of loyal Ultima 2000 telescope users out there, so if you could add this scope to your list of scopes, that would be fantastic.

I would be willing to be your tester. I would also like to learn which parts of the source code are part of the telescope control modules. I tried to locate the telescope control code, last night but I could not find it. BTW did you write the code in C++? It looks lke the construct is C related.

If you get this done and we can make this work, we should post a notice on the ASCOM Yahoo Group and you will get a flock of people to come to your web site!

Thanks,

Bert

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Bogdan Marinov (daggerstab) said : 		#3

I've opened a "Wishlist" bug report to use as a communication channel, as the bug tracker has more features than the one for Questions/Answers:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/725105

As for the code, it's in C++ and it's inherited by the initial implementation that used separate programs as "telescope servers". So the code is a bit strange.

The trunk version of the Telescope Control plug-in is here:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~stellarium/stellarium/trunk/files/head:/plugins/TelescopeControl/

The code that currently deals with NexStar is mostly here:
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~stellarium/stellarium/trunk/files/head:/plugins/TelescopeControl/src/servers/

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask Bert Schneider for more information if necessary.

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