Theatre Hipparchus

Starry Night Pro Plus scope control.

I am quite excited about the merger of Desktop Universe and Starry Night Pro Plus planetarium software. I like the SNP platform. Now add the All Sky Mosiac. The platform will be expanded to integrate with Maxim DL\CCD which is my current program for captures. A friend of mine has the new version 5.0 SNPP and graphically it is superb.

I just haven't spent much time with the planetarium programs to get out all the good things built into them. Here is my workflow for connection with Gemini.

In the Starry Night program clicking on Configure in the telescope tab summons the Ascom telescope chooser. Click on properties to see if your ports and other items are configured correctly.

This is the GUI that will appear. I have to take a moment here to applaud Ajai Sehgal for this piece of artistry. Here he has taken a bit more time with layout and added colours to his interface. I know he does a superova search program as part of Maxim DL - judging by this work I will wager that it is a good program too. 

In this case the data is correct as stated so I click OK and go back to the planetarium program. In some cases you may have to toggle a few of the items to match your Gemini set up.

Here we are at the start up position with SNP showing Gemini at polar home. I am using the Gemini hand paddle to select stars and slews. After three or four slews to bright stars in the database a model is built up. I try for three or four on the east side of the meridian then over to the west side for two or three more.