Autostar suite - only for Meade??

Is Autostar suite only for Meade scopes, or can it be used to control a Celestron scope?

Good question - I'm sure I've seen folks on the DSI board saying they can with some tweaking. But I wouldn't bet my life on it...

Try the boards if you haven't already - the lads there are really quick to get back to you.

groups.yahoo.com/group/Meade_DSI

Cheers

Dave

Is Autostar suite only for Meade scopes, or can it be used to control a Celestron scope?

Mike Weasner says Autostar Suite only works with Autostar 497 and Autostar II and is not compatible with Celestron scopes, but that was a year or so ago so check out Dave's lead.

Gordon

Does celestron have the same interface as the Meades?

www.meade.com/support/LX200CommandSet.pdf

lists the command set for the Meade scopes (some only work on the LX200). If you are feeling curious you can hook up a serial line and tip to the scope/autostar, and play with sending commands to it.

Some source code (GPL) is availble in the xephem source code (GUI/xephem/tools/lx200xed) for connecting to the autostar/lx200. While that is interesting to look at it must be said that it is now a legacy tool.

sourceforge.net/projects/indi is the newer approach. About INDI Astronomical Control Protocol. What that gives you is a standard interface with modules (cpp) for handling various lower protocols. It surrently supports the autostar and celeston ranges. This is what xephem now uses. The application end is Unix specific.

Cheers,
~Al

I cant imagine it is compatible with celestron scopes given the recent litigation between the 2 companies. I dont think it even works on some of the older meade goto scopes.