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Overview

NTC Network Telescope Control Cartes du Ciel plugin version 0.2.0 Build 22

NTC comes in two parts, server and a client plug-in for Cartes du Ciel which is a free opensource astronomical planetarium software that supports GOTO. The plug-in allows control of a remote telescope over a network including the Internet.

The program has a dialog box that I call the main panel, it's colour is gray. You select pages of control panels by clicking on a tab in the main panel. In each tab page there are buttons that hide or show the control panels for the page. At the moment there are two pages, setup and control. More pages are planned including one for streaming live video.

When you select a control panel page, the currently selected page of control panels will dissapear unless you right click on a control button and make it 'sticky'. The new set of control panels for the page you select will then appear. NTC will remember if any of your control panels are on another monitor and will relocate any controls that are misplaced due to the resolution of the display being smaller that before, so the controls will not be out of the scope of the display.

When you wish to hide the plugin, just click on the hide button on the control panel. When you close Cartes du Ciel the settings for the NTC plug-in will be saved.

At the moment the server supports a LX200 or Autostar telescope controller. Partial and untested Celestron is supported including the SkyScan.

There is a minor problem with LX200 handsets, when you move the scope using the new functions, don't move again until the LX200 handset beeps indicating that it is ready.

NTC can control dedicated focusers and can alter tracking rates.


Setting up

Setting up the scope and NTC

To set up NTC to control a remote telescope the scope has to be aligned and plugged into the server computer.

Connecting a client NTC plug-in to the server.

Connecting to the telescope.

Controlling the Telescope.


Connecting a client NTC to the server

Connecting a client NTC to the server

The client network dialog simply consists of an IP address and port field. Leave the port alone unless you know what you are doing. The IP address should be the same IP address that the serrver is set to. Remember that some IP addresses only work on a local area network [LAN] and won't be visible on the Internet. IP addresses that start 192.168.0 or 169.254 or 10 are local addresses and will only work on the same network as both the client and server.

If you have a firewall behind the Internet and you want a client to connect to a server behind the firewall from the Internet then then you need to enable IP forwarding on your firewall, and give the client NTC the IP address that the firewall uses to access the Net.

Once the IP address has been entered into the IP address field you then click on the 'Connect' button and the LED should turn green. If it is blue then the client is still trying to connect.


Connecting to the telescope

Connecting to the telescope

To connect remotely you need to be connected to the server. If connected to the server you then click on the 'Control' page in the main panel and then make sure that the connect panel is visible. Then click on the 'Connect' button.

Once connected to your scope the controls in the 'Control', 'Search', 'Focus' and 'Tracking' panels will be enabled.


Controlling the telescope

Controlling the telescope

The controls for moving the telescope are the same for the client as well as when controlling the telescope locally. In the control panel there are two ways of moving the scope. Either by moving based on the dimensions of the camera that is looking through the scope. The server contains edit controls that need the right information based on the dimensions of the camera. Like the width and height in pixels etc.

On the control panel there are two buttons, one with a % sign and the other with a " sign. The first button selects the window mode and the other selects the offset mode. In offset mode you choose how far to move the scope each time you press a direction button. In window mode you can select the amount of overlap for each frame. In offset mode you specify how far to move the scope by entering the values in the RA/Dec edit controls.

You can also Focus, alter the Tracking and use the Search control.


The Network panel

The Network panel

For the network panel, you simply enter the IP address and port of the server and click on connect. It may take a few seconds to connect and the LED will turn blue. Once connected the LED will turn green.


The locale panel

The Locale panel

The locale panel is specifically for the telescopes location in geographical latitude and longitude. This information should be filled in when you connect to the remote computer.


The Information panel

The information panel

The information panel will display the coordinates of the telescopes position - assuming that the telescope is aligned. The coordinates returned are equatorial and horizon coordinates.

The rerfresh rate determines the interval between readings, the default being 30000 milliseconds.


The Control panel

The Control panel

The connect and disconnect buttons enable of disable local control of a scope, you can only do this when the client isn't connected to the scope.

There are two ways of moving the scope, by the dimensions of the video camera attached to the telescope, or by a fixed offset specified in degrees minutes and seconds. The button with a % sign is for window mode and the button with " selects offset mode.

In window mode you choose the overlap with the slider control.

Offset mode is done by entering the offset in degrees, minutes and seconds. You can actually enter the value as a decimal fraction, when you press enter the value will be converted to sexagesimal automatically.

There is a minor problem with LX200 handsets, when you move the scope using the new functions, don't move again until the LX200 handset beeps indicating that it is ready.


The Focus panel

The Focus panel

The focus panel allows the remote control of a electric focuser. At the moment, the Meade focuser is supported. There are other focusers, but some don't' allow software control. The escape controls for the focuser is in the meade.ini file if you want to change them. See the configuration help for information about the format of the escape codes.

Speeds supported by the focuser are specified in the 'server.ini' file with the 'focuser_speeds' key.


The Tracking panel

The Tracking panel

Tracking is for changing the tracking rate of the scope. Lunar tracking sets the scope to follow the moons direction as well as the movement of the earth. To reset the tracking back to 60 hertz, click on the reset button. You can also increase or decrease the tracking rate by 0.1 hertz.


The Search panel

The Search panel

The search function will try to help you locate a object that was visible in the eyepiece, but cant be found after inserting the camera.

The out button will move the camera vision out of the current frame. The In button will move the camera vision to the next nested frame.

The percentage slide control on the control panel is to allow for overlap when the camera is moved. The default is 80%, that is 20% of the last frame is overlapped with the new frame.

The clockwise button will move the camera around the current frame, and the anti clockwise button will move the camera in the opposite direction.

The stop button will stop the scope from slewing, and the reset button will clear the search configuration and make the current frame the center frame.