Astronomy

After consulting the weather forecast yesterday I didn’t expect to have any opportunity to get out this weekend, but after a sleep early evening I popped outside and was pleasantly surprised to find a, mostly, clear sky.  I was less pleased, but not so surprised, to find how cold it was.  It wasn’t a thrilling 90 minutes observing.  I still have what I consider a somewhat uninteresting patch of sky available, in all likelihood this is a function of the limits of my knowledge, and everything was set up in some haste.  But it was still interesting as it flagged up a couple of things that I need to look into, one relating to the ‘scope/laptop/software and the other regarding just exactly what I’m looking at!

Got everything set up, ‘scope, laptop, cable et al.  I fire up the NexRemote software and select the ‘Night Vision’ option which darkens the representation of the handset but the background is still normal, will have to create an all black .jpg to use as a background when using the laptop.  Started to do the alignment process and started to find the first area of my ignorance.  Didn’t take long to realise that it’s a little problematical to do the alignment from the laptop, using the touchpad to manoeuvre the telescope around to line up the stars to be used for the alignment is not too clever, back and forth between the finder, the eyepiece and using the touchpad to manipulate the keys on the representation of the handset requires either more hands, more eyes or more of both than I have!  So I tried the align with both the handset, which remains active, and the laptop and the alignment failed.  Went through the laborious process using only the laptop and it was successful.  On each occasion I used the three stars of the summer triangle and was precise as I could be in centring each one and this made me wonder about the setup between the NexRemote, handset and the mount.  Does NexRemote register position changes initiated via the handset?  It must do, mustn’t it, it must interrogate the mount for the current motor position each time it starts to move to a new object? In which case it shouldn’t affect the alignment no matter where the motor commands came from.  But I was scrupulous it doing the first alignment and it failed.  This uncertainty will be resolved with use I imagine.

The other question raised tonight was about just what it was I was seeing through the eyepiece.  After getting the SLT to go to a few objects I had it go back to Vega to check the accuracy of the alignment, it was a little off, putting Vega below and to the right of centre in the field of view, but not wildly out of alignment.  Having suggested I don’t have the most interesting piece of sky available to me at this time of year, there are a number of Messier objects available and I decided to have a look at a few.  Having established that the alignment was OK I have to assume that it was putting the requested object in the field, yet I didn’t recognise anything that looked noteworthy.  After the battery on the laptop was down to under 20% and I had packed things up for the night I checked Starry Night for the objects  I’d been looking for/at and most of them were globular clusters and I now need to try to find out if the 25mm eyepiece, actual FOV 1.30⁰, magnification 78x, either doesn’t resolve what I was looking at or the FOV is too tight?  One way or another it keeps me occupied!

Received my package from Telescope Planet, via FedEx, within next day timescale.  Got a little anxious about it this morning though.  Sent an email yesterday evening pointing out that I had not received confirmation of dispatch.  As I had not received a reply by 11 a.m. I tried to ring to find out what was happening.  The specified number for sales and tracking numbers went unanswered twice and I then tried the general customer service number.  Got an answer but the operator couldn’t put me through to someone who could talk to me there and then to find out what the position was with my order.  He took details of the order and assured me someone would ring back ‘shortly’, when I enquired how he was defining ‘shortly’ he couldn’t tell me.  The package turned up at about 12.15 p.m. and a reply to my email at about 12.30 p.m. I’m still waiting for the ‘shortly’ phone call.  I replied to the email advising that the package had arrived and a subsequent email from them indicated that I should have received confirmation of dispatch.  I’ve checked junk and spam email folders and nothing received that I can find.  Maybe I’m being Mr Picky, after all the goods turned up as expected, but I’m still a little concerned as to what sort of experience it would have been to try to sort it out if they had not?  If the price is right then I’ll use them again but until I’ve had a few more transactions go through without difficulty than I couldn’t recommend them.

The package contained the expected bits and bobs, serial to RJ9 (I think) lead, USB to serial lead, which includes a chipset to identify it to the OS, Vista found it without problem and installed two drivers, the supplied mini CD with drivers on were not needed.  The PC can be connected to the ‘scope using just the serial to RJ9 lead or the two leads can be connected together and connected via a USB port rather than the RS232 port.  When connected together the combined lead gives a cable run of about 7 feet.  The install process was far from smooth, inserted the CD, autoplay offered me winopen.exe which opens an html page with other install options, user manuals etc.  Clicked to install the NexRemote software and the file starts to unpack, only to fall over and advise that the setup can’t continue on WinNTx and closes.  Before I could get on to the website, Vista popped up a box advising that the software had not installed correctly and I did I want to re-install using the recommended settings?  I clicked ‘yes’ and the software installed OK after the required reboot.  When you open up the NexRemote program you are presented with a representation of the handset with the top/keypad removed, asks for COM port to be selected, the driver installation mapped this to COM4 so no problem there but then it asks for the firmware version of the handset and did not offer one for the SLT so used the NexStar GPS just to see what would happen.  Nothing much is the answer, the representation changed to one with the top/keypad in place, not clear how much communication there was with the mount that it’s plugged into, the handset display did not change no matter what input I entered on the laptop, as I’m not outside I didn’t give it a full try out.  Now went off to the Celestron website and found the handset update software.  The cables that come with the package allow this, so why was the software not included?  Installed that without problem, it couldn’t identify the currently installed firmware but selected the SLT mount version and clicked download from the web and was then offered 4 versions, selected the latest according to version number, no info available on release date, and the HC Update software installed and verified it.  Not noticed any changes to the available menu structure so far.  Poked around a little more on the website and found version 1.6.15 Vista of the NexRemote software available for download, the version on the CD being 1.5.8.  Downloaded it and the install fell over once again and I had to wait for Vista to tell me it hadn’t installed properly and reinstall with recommended settings, a bit surprising in what is supposed to be a Vista specific version.  So install, reboot and open the program which gives a similar representation but now asks for the mount model and includes the firmware version that I have installed on the handset.  That’s about as far as I have got with the NexRemote software so far, hope to have chance to give it a proper test at the weekend.

There are a couple of other things that I will be having a look at, the motor control firmware can also be updated using this kit as well it would appear and a piece of software called NexGPS has also been installed, this allows the connection of non-Celestron GPS devices and delivers position data to the handset, the problem appears to be getting that data from my GPS to where it’s needed.  More work to be done here.

Ordered the NexRemote control software from TelescopePlanet.co.uk, it hasn’t turned up yet so can’t comment on their service, paid £95 which was £10 cheaper than Amazon or Green Witch.  Paid an additional £4.95 for next day delivery, standard delivery is free but I couldn’t find out how it would be despatched or what the likely timescale for receipt would be.  The software replicates the handset functions on a PC or laptop and comes with the necessary cable to hook it up to the SLT.  Also comes with the serial to USB cable which I guess I can use together and extend the length of the run to the laptop to control the ‘scope.  The only worry being which will hit the floor first when I trip over the cable, £300 worth of laptop or telescope?  The cables also allow updating of the handset software, which I feel should have come as standard.

Did think long and hard about whether to get this or put a little more in and get a couple of higher spec eyepieces.  I suspect that a ‘proper’ astronomer would have gone for the eyepieces but I am what I am, and that’s a bit of a computer nerd as well as someone with an interest in astronomy and the software allows the combination of two of my favourite hobbies.