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Last updated: 27 June 2004
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Last updated: 27 June 2004 |
Subject: ETX -105 and LPI setup Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2004 02:16:12 From: David Frieslander (david@frieslander.co.uk) I must be stupid! I have a laptop and an ETX105. The laptop has no serial port, so I purchased a converter so that I could attach the serial adpater to the USB adapter. However, in the LPI box comes two black cables, one flat and long the other round and short. The short one apears to fir into the bottom of the autostar, the long one does not. Please could you tell me, am I supposed to connect any cable to the bottom of the EXT105 or just from the autostar to the laptop? If just to the laptop from the autostar, can you tell me how to get the autostarsuite to work. I just can't figure it out! From a complete newbie! Regards David FrieslanderMike here: As I note in my article "Autostar Suite on a Macintosh" (linked from the Helpful Information - Autostar Info page), check the Meade's Autostar Suite Troubleshooting page (http://www.meade.com/autostar/tsguide.html). There is also a new Quick Start Guide on this page, which adds serial cable instructions for the Autostar #497." You might want to read through that article for even more info on using the Suite.
Subject: autostar suite Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 05:01:01 From: neo (jonylucas172@hotmail.com) i want to ask some questions about the autostar suite that i purchased yesterday.i have a pentium 3 laptop 256 mb ram and win xp pro.i followed the instructions and installed tthe autostar suite and the lpi.i did not install the hubble guide star gatalog.the instalation whent fine .then problems started.my system crashed.i dowladed the latest version of the autostar suite from meade site.i run the update.then i try to run the autostar suite for the first time.i got an error:binary/planets was not found.it kept splashing on the screen whenever i tried to do anynithing.i closed the suite and opened it again.after several tries i had the skymapview.then,after i polar aligned the scope with a two star allignement i try to conect to the autostar.no ,nothing,zip.i change the cables and everyting worked fine.(golden rule check the cables even if they are brand new)lucky i had a extra spare cable and adaptor.i tried to make some slews and the scope was of by some degrees.then i tried to sync to antares trough the autostar suite.again it was of for some degrees.itried the lpi.all worked fine.today i tried to open some images and i got the same error:images/dso was not found was it is wrong i can not say.any suggestions?do i have to unistall and install again?and the acuracy?alone the autostar the acuracy was dead on,but with the suite is off even on the moon.a .today the system grashed again when i tried to open an m8 image from the autostar suite library.any ideas?Mike here: Sorry you've had problems. It should work with XP but since I tend to avoid using Windows I'm no expert. I have run the Suite successfully on my Macintosh using VirtualPC with Win2K. One thought though; have you checked the Autostar Suite Troubleshooting page (http://www.meade.com/autostar/tsguide.html) and the FAQ page (http://www.meade.com/autostar/faq.html)? As to the Autostar itself, have you updated to 3.1Ee and did you reTRAIN DRIVES following the update?
And:
I have 3.1 version in the autostar and I did made a calibrate motors and train drives procedure in polar mode which I use the scope.last night when I used the etx without the pc I could not make an alignment in polar neither in alt/as.did a reset calibrate and train and all went dead on in alt/as.the suite does not appear any fault messages when I open the application and I can find the images today when I try the pc alone.I thing I should switch to Mac(damn wintel pc.....).now I understand why Mac have so dedicated users.I will try today and lets you know.a and by the way tomorrow I am going shopping for g4.
Subject: Autostar Suite and laptop with only USB ports Sent: Friday, June 25, 2004 06:17:23 From: Nigel Cook (nigel@glanville.nildram.co.uk) I have just received Meades LPI. To control the scope via computer requires the use of a serial port. However my Acer laptop doesn't have a serial port only 3 USB ports. Is there any way I can control the scope via a USB port using the Autostar Suite. Thanks for any help. NigelMike here: I use a Keyspan USB-serial adapter on my Apple PowerBook laptop. They also have Windows versions. Belkin has similar devices for Macs and PCs. Meade has one for PCs only.
And:
Thanks for reply Mike. I'll look into something from Belkin. Can't wait to get this all up and running. Typical UK summer though, cloudy skies and rain. Regards, Nigel
Subject: Re: Autostar, LPI and remote LAN access Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2004 20:19:24 From: Dave Jeffries (dj@jeffries.eclipse.co.uk) Thanks Mike, Dick, Good advice - much appreciated - I was beginning to think I had missed something major on how this was all supposed to work. Regards Dave
Subject: Autostar, LPI and remote LAN access Sent: Friday, June 18, 2004 20:32:24 From: Dave Jeffries (dj@jeffries.eclipse.co.uk) Hi, I'm fairly new to all this stuff - got an ETX-90, LPI and autostar - also lucky enough to have a spare laptop. But I have a fundamental question about this whole remote access thing...apologies for my ignorance on this... I have the ETX-90 connected to the Laptop, the LPI connected to the laptop. The laptop connected to a Wi-Fi LAN. Now on my main desktop I can remotely control the ETX-90 through the laptop which is great...but I can't do anything with the LPI (since it's connected to the laptop directly and doesn't work remotely). The only way I can see anything is via pcAnywhere and remotely connecting to the Laptop...now this is where I get dumb...if I have to use pcAnywhere to remotely view anything from the LPI then what's the purpose of remotely connecting to the Autostar ??? I could also pcAnywhere to do that. Am I missing something fundamental about the remote capabilities of Autostar ??? Many thanks for reading this far and humouring me - I'm missing some fundamental point I'm sure... Regards DaveMike here: I haven't tried controlling the Suite via my network; I've only used to the Autostar Suite "networking" capability to avoid the comm port conflict with its separate applications. Have you updated to the latest version (3.16a)?
And:
From: Richard Seymour (rseymour@wolfenet.com) You've asked a perfectly valid question. First, the built-in "remote control" is also the only way to -share- the control of the Autostar amongst the various portions of the Suite itself. For that alone, it's handy, even on a single system. For the full-and-truly-remote question, I think the only half-answer that makes any sense is "cost". The other half-answer is that AutostarSuite still lacks some useful features, such as remote LPI imaging. At times i get the impression it was written by more than one person, and they didn't communicate very well. I (for example) don't have pcAnywhere, so the AutostarSuite -does- give me remote control without added expense, but without the ability to see what the LPI is doing. On the other hand, if i were doing remote control, i'd probably have additional resources at hand, such as different imaging systems. (How does SAC or SBIG do it?) For folks with Windows XP (and some other versions), there's "NetMeeting" (free download), which at least lets you -see- the camera output remotely... add the Suite's inherent remote control, and you've got everything but LPI-based Autoguiding. For adding remote autoguiding, Windows XP gives you the Remote Desktop feature, which approaches pcAnywhere's (and Timbuktoo on both PC and Mac) level of control. have fun --dickMike here: VNC would also work then. I use it for managing my local Mac OS X server box (not running the Mac OS X Server, but the client). VNC is, of course, available for most all OSes.
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