Weasner's Meade Autostar Suite User Feedback

AUTOSTAR SUITE USER FEEDBACK

Last updated: 31 October 2004

This page is for user comments and information specific to the Meade Autostar Suite. If you have any comments, suggestions, questions or answers to questions posed here, e-mail them to me and I'll post them. Please use an appropriate Subject Line on your message. Thanks. (The Lunar Planetary Imager, LPI, is covered in the Helpful Information - Astrophotography area.)

Subject:	autostar suite problem
Sent:	Saturday, October 30, 2004 14:19:59
From:	Infobud1@aol.com (Infobud1@aol.com)
sorry to bother you. I have a problem when I try to process any image in
autostar suite processor, whenever I try to load an image I get an
'invalid tag' message. This happens no matter what format the image is
saved under. Can you help please?
Ray Baldock
England

Mike here: Just to confirm, you are using BMP formatted files? If the problem occurs with Windows BMP files then I suggest reinstalling and updating to the current version 3.16a from Meade's site.

Subject:	re:  Slew/Sync with Autostar Suite
Sent:	Thursday, October 7, 2004 20:32:46
From:	Richard Seymour (rseymour@wolfenet.com)
What you have to do before the StarMap can control
the telescope is choose "Telescope / Protocol"
from the top menu bar, and choose (probably)
"Autostar via COM port"

That sets up the connection, and *then* the
various telescope=motion choices become available.

have fun
--dick

And this:

From:	Fernando Campuzano (fcamp@ya.com)
Related with Doug MacDougall message about this item:

When you use Autostar suite to control your scope, do you just activate
the menu option in "Telescope/Protocol/Remote handbox"? If you want to
control the scope from the starmap you need to activate the menu option
"Telescope/Protocol/Autostar via comm port". The two options are in
principle incompatibe to each other because they need to share the same
comm port. Nevertheless is possible to control the scope from the
starmap and, at the same time, have the option to control it from the
(virtual) handbox in your laptop screen if you use the option "Autostar
via network". You will need to set the network address 127.0.0.1.

I hope this will be useful for you

Best regards

And:

Sorry, I've forgot some details. The first thing you must do is activate
"Telescope/communications/Star network server". Here, "scope port" will
be the comm port you are using and "network port" will be 5401. Then,
activate "listen" box.

After this, go to "Telescope/protocol/remote handbox" and connect
through "Network Address/Port" option (address 127.0.0.1 and port 5401).
For the starmap control, activate "Telescope/protocol/Autostar via
network" (again address 127.0.0.1 and port 5401).

And....voil! You will be slewing your scope from the virtual handbox and
at the same time having the option to point and slew from the starmap.

Hope this works for you. This is the way I use to contol mine.

Best regards

Subject:	Slew/Sync with Autostar Suite
Sent:	Tuesday, October 5, 2004 06:55:12
From:	Doug MacDougall (DMacDougall@ck-co.com)
My first warning--I am the lowest level beginner possible.  That having
been said......

I just purchased an LXD75 SN-6.  I've had success with the Autostar
handbox, i.e. setting polar home, doing easy align, and getting the Goto
function to work.  I've even gotten the LPI to work reasonably well.

My question relates to the Autostar software.  I've successfully linked
it to the telescope.  That is, I can slew the scope from the software,
as well as access all the menu items.  What I'm now looking to do is
view the starmap on the software, and have the scope slew to a point
that I bring up on the starmap.  When I click on an area of the starmap,
a menu comes up with various options (center object, object description,
add to user data, etc).  However, the options to "Slew Telescope" and
"Sync Telescope" are grayed out.  Am I missing a step here?  Is this
function available with my scope?  The second "feature" listed on the
Autostar box relates to slewing the scope from the starmap, so it must
be possible for at least some people.  Any help is appreciated.

Doug

Mike here: In my limited use of the Starmap from my Macintosh, I wasn't able to get slewing to work from the starmap, only the remote handbox. However, in Autotrack mode the starmap would display where the telescope was pointed.

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