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Telescope Control - Detailed Notes

Deep-Sky Planner supports telescope control using the ASCOM software platform. Support for ASCOM in Deep-Sky Planner is limited in the following ways:

▪Equatorial and alt-azimuth slewing capabilities are supported. Asychronous slewing is preferred and will be used if your device supports it. Synchronous slewing will only be used if your device does not support asynchronous slewing. Most commercial mounts accommodate asynchronous slewing.

Synchronous slewing causes Deep-Sky Planner to wait for the slew operation to complete before updating the screen or accepting further input from you.

▪Deep-Sky Planner supports slewing to a position referred to the epoch and equinox of the current date, J2000 or J2050, but not B1950. Most commercial mounts use the epoch and equinox of the current date.

If your mount supports epoch of date positioning, Deep-Sky Planner precesses J2000 positions (used in deep-sky and stellar catalogs) to the epoch of date before transmitting the position to the mount. Planet, comet & asteroid positions are calculated for epoch of date so no precession is required.

Similarly, if your mount does not support epoch of date positioning, Deep-Sky Planner precesses epoch of date positions (planets, comets, asteroids) to epoch J2000 or J2050 as appropriate before transmitting the position to the mount. Deep-sky and stellar catalog positions are precessed to J2050 if appropriate.

Device-Specific Operating Notes

Device	Special Condition	Behavior
LX200 Classic	Cable not attached to the telescope when Connect is attempted	Deep-Sky Planner waits indefinitely for the ASCOM driver to return an error message. You may need to use the Task Manager to stop Deep-Sky Planner. Connect the cable and restart Deep-Sky Planner.
LX200 Classic	Cable becomes detached while Deep-Sky Planner is Connected	Deep-Sky Planner will wait approximately 30 seconds after you reconnect the cable to begin updating the screen and accepting user inputs.