Paul Rodman wrote:

Guys,

I am about to embark on a software project that will revolve around
controlling a LX200 telescope. I am aware that there are several sky
mapping apps that already do telescope control, so I don't want to
add yet another (at this time).

What I would rather do is add features that are useful to myself and
perhaps a minority of others and which are not available on the sky
mappers (e.g. TheSky), or if they are try and make a simpler-to-use
version.

Some ideas that come to mind:

- - Comet hunting. Get the telescope to scan a specified area at a
specified speed in order to patrol for comets. e.g. Move the scope in
azimuth, move down in altitude by the field of view of the eyepiece,
and move back along the same azimuth until the area is complete.

- - Observation Planning. Input object data for an observing session
and move from one object to another in some order (possibly to
minimise slewing, in order of magnitude (so that you're dark adapted
by the time you get to those pesky 15th mag beasts), etc.)

- - Tours. For a given constellation (say), conduct a guided tour of
selected interesting objects within its boundaries.

- - Messier hunts. For the competitive people. Work out the optimal
sequence to see as many Messier objects as possible in one night (or
several nights).

- - Telescope exercise. In the event that you want to "burn in" your
new (or repaired) scope, an "exercise regime" could be set up to do
lots of unattended slewing to bed down those worms, etc.

- - Voice output. So you don't have to look at a screen and destroy
your dark adaption. (Voice input is another matter - I don't want to
tread there at this time...)

Any other ideas would be most appreciated. You can email me off-line
if you like.

I plan to make the software Mac- (including Mac OS X) and
Windows-native, although I might have to charge a small premium for
Windows users since it will cost me a few hundred bucks to upgrade my
development software to create Windows executables.

The software would most likely be shareware rather than a full-blown
commercial product.

- --

Paul Rodman

My response:

These are all great ideas and I would love to see them, however,
remember that
the Meade RA and Dec motors are very fragile things at best. They even
fail
under normal tracking situations, I wouldn't recommend exercising them
in the
way you suggest. In a perfect world your software would be a blessing
to all
users of LX200 scopes, but I fear that your software would probably burn
out the
current crop of LX200 motors. Even C-Sat strains LX200 motors.

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