Conmunication to Celestron Mount without ASCOM possible?

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MunichAtNight
Posts: 50
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:57 am

Conmunication to Celestron Mount without ASCOM possible?

#1

Post by MunichAtNight »

Hello from Munich!

I am doing EAA with a Skywatcher 130 PDS on a Celestron SE azimutal mount SE. It is so easy to control the mount with Stellarium. Just plug in the USB cable into the Celestron hand controller and into the Windows PC and Stellarium is able to control directly the mount without ASCOM!

Stellarium is doing it thru a COM-Port-x emulation driver. I was trying to do the same with Sharpcap Pro - but it looks to me, that Sharpcap won't communicate without ASCOM in the background with a Celestron mount, isn't it?

To be honest ASCOM is a nightmare for me and I don't have an idea how to work with it. I tried to install ASCOM and work with it on an other PC than my ASTRO PAD for testing purpose, ended with I think 20 new entries in the windows menu but no way to find out how to proceed ... Nevertheless my working ASTRO Windows PAD is limited in space with disc capacity, so I don't want to have such an overload on software, without any need.

Is there a way with Sharpcap to communicate directly with the Celestron mount as Stellarium is able, too?

Thanks for any input - MunichAtNight
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Re: Conmunication to Celestron Mount without ASCOM possible?

#2

Post by admin »

Hi,

I'm afraid that ASCOM is the only option for mount control in SharpCap - keeping up with the dozens of brands of mount (let alone all the different models, each with their own glitches and issues) simply isn't feasible.

To use ASCOM you should just have to install

* ASCOM Platform
* An ASCOM driver for your Celestron mount - there is a link on this page for a 'unified celestron driver' : https://ascom-standards.org/Downloads/ScopeDrivers.htm . I think there was also another official one that showed the nexstar handset on screen, but I can't find the link for it right now.

You should then just run SharpCap as usual and be able to select and configure the ASCOM driver from within the hardware settings. In theory you should be able to configure Stellarium to use ASCOM too, although I have never used Stellarium in that way, so I can't offer advice on that.

cheers,

Robin
MunichAtNight
Posts: 50
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:57 am

SLOVED! Re: Conmunication to Celestron Mount without ASCOM possible?

#3

Post by MunichAtNight »

Hi Robin,

thanks for the feedback. I could solve my problems with ASCOM and now I am able to run my EAA setup each "clear" night with Sharcap Pro and Stellarium. Great and awesome! Thanks for doing this wonderful software!

MunichAtNight - Ewald
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