nakbrooks

Ignore that post. Issue resolved.

I'm following the instructions in the latest Autoslew documentation (for incremental drives) to create a pointing file. I'm using Autoslew 5.2.3.1. The cross hairs button doesn't appear (the documentation shows it between the pointing file and LPT buttons). What is the equivalent in 5.2.3.1 to confirm each star after centering it? Thanks

Denis, if you are running a beta Autoslew you probably should join the beta group here so you can access my link plus other info. Just ask ASA to add you to the beta group.

Have you seen the Win10 installation guide here http://forum.astrosysteme.com/index.php?/topic/685-windows-10-installation/&do=findComment&comment=3831

Personally I always set my observing system to local time without daylight saving. However I know others allow daylight saving and some people use UTC. I've even heard of people working remotely who use the time at their home location rather than the observatory site. Obviously it doesn't affect pointing or tracking directly as Autoslew makes the adjustments, but there are practical concerns. What are the pros and cons of the different time settings - just gathering thoughts for a FAQ article on the Wiki. Nigel

George - yes that is what I had found (same paper from a different source). Way too complicated for me to program with any confidence. I'm thinking my best bet is to use the ASCOM POTH to do the maths. If I set it up with the scope and dome simulators I should be able to issue scope Alt/Az pointing commands and intercept the resulting Dome Alt command. My objective is firstly to check my dome slaving (which seems a bit off) and secondly to optimise pointing files to minimise dome rotation time.

Does anyone know of an online or downloadable calculator that will input telescope Alt/Az parameters and calculate the required dome Az (once configured with the dome and mount geometry). This is obviously built-in to numerous programs, but I'm looking for a stand-alone calculator. I've found the equations, but they are beyond my programming capability.

The shutter width on my dome isn't overly wide for my 400mm telescope. I also have a flats screen which is only just big enough. Temporarily attaching cheap line lasers lets me check I am within the shutter opening at all pointing angles, and also helps me set Park 2 exactly on the flats screen.

Fully agree. Michael: there is a lot of ASA documentation which exists but is either specific to individual customers or very old. However often this documentation is valuable as it is all that exists. It seems there are three options here: 1. ASA puts all current documentation in your download area and also creates a new area on your web site for "Archived Documents". You can then put all the old or specialist documents in that Archive (with a "health warning" that it may not be up to date and users should use it at their own risk. 2. You give permission for the Wiki to hold copies of all ASA documentation that we can find and any others that you can give us. We will put this in a document archive on the Wiki (with a similar "health warning"). 3. We don't put this documentation on the Wiki but we use it to create new guidance pages on the Wiki. Dietmar has already given us permission to extract text and photos from your manuals for this purpose. However this will only be a partial answer as the user community does not have the time or knowledge to re-write and update your documentation (neither is this our responsibility). Could ASA please confirm which of the above options you can agree to?

Michael Agreed. Can I suggest the following: In the existing ASA Imaging forum create a new Board called "Imaging Discussion". Create a new ASA forum called "Astro Science" with three Boards: - "Science Discussion" - "Astrometry" - "Photometry" Together with the existing ASA Forums/Boards this should cover most discussion topics relating to ASA hardware/software. (Discussion about the Wiki itself probably belongs on the Wiki site, which already has discussion forums for Improvements, Bug Reports, Editors, etc).

Don't have that Waldemar - could you send it to me? nigel.brooks@stratis.co.uk. We won't add the manual to the Wiki but we do have email confirmation from ASA (Dietmar) that we can extract material from their documentation for use on the Wiki so it may be useful. Thanks

Waldemar For Autoslew I agree the new manuals are good and probably provide enough information for Autoslew installation and basic configuration. What they don't do is provide a comprehensive reference guide to the user interface (screen controls, menus, etc). The old manual (Autoslew-Manual_E) dating from 2012 is much better at that, but the interface has changed a bit now (the old manual is based on 5.0.4.3 and earlier versions). Maybe we continue with the screen/menu sections on the Wiki but the installation and configuration sections can simply refer to the new ASA manuals?

Now that we have a Wiki which is starting (slowly) to be populated it would be good to get users' views on how it should develop. Here are the things it COULD do (but maybe it shouldn't try to do all of them): 1. Answer user questions and problems (maybe this is best done using this ASA Forum, which is more responsive than a wiki). 2. Provide tutorials and "how to" guidance aimed at new users (ASA should be doing this, but as they are not, this is probably a good thing for the wiki to do). 3. Provide basic documentation of how to install, configure and operate ASA hardware and software (obviously this must be ASAs responsibility using their own documentation, but as much of that documentation is missing or out of date maybe the wiki should try and do this also - however maybe that will discourage ASA from bringing their own documentation up to a good standard). 4. Provide supplementary documentation on advanced features that ASA does not document (also this should be ASAs responsibility but it seems they have no intention of documenting these features so maybe the wiki should; however do we have the technical information to do this accurately - particularly as ASA have said they do not have the resources to contribute directly to the wiki?) 5. Provide information on how to integrate ASA hardware/software with 3rd party hardware/software (this is probably a good thing for the wiki to do as it is not really ASA's responsibility) 6. Provide a forum for astrophotography, astrometry, photometry and other activities by ASA users for them to discuss techniques and host their results (not sure about this one, is it best to do this here on this ASA Forum or in the wiki?) Before we invest too much effort in building the wiki further it would be good to get views from as many ASA users as possible. For example, we have started to document the Autoslew user interface on the wiki but this is already described (albeit incompletely) by ASA documentation. Should we continue to complete and expand this user interface documentation or should we simply refer to existing ASA documentation, even if it is a bit out of date? Please add comments to this thread on which of the 6 above areas we should focus on, where we should prioritise and if there is anything else we should be doing. Many thanks

Mark We're trying to replicate this problem (works fine for me with Win 7 and Firefox which is frustrating). Just try and eliminate other factors, are you able to try with a different browser from this PC, and also with Furefox from a different PC? Thanks

Thanks Mark, I've messaged you. If anyone has anything on ACC itself I'd be very grateful - I use it for rotator and mirror doors control, as well as manual focus. Works fine but that was with the help of ASA setting up the detailed configuration settings. I don't like relying upon undocumented settings so was hoping there might be some informal notes somewhere, even if no formal documentation. I can then write it up for the wiki.

I've not been able to locate any documentation for ACC anywhere. Does anyone have any documentation (even if it is very out of date)? I'm particularly looking for guidance on configuring the detailed settings. Thanks

Benoit, ASA staff do not always use this forum. You will get a quicker answer if you contact ASA direct here: http://www.astrosysteme.com/contact/

It is a community effort by ASA users. It is intended mainly to support amateur users of ASA hardware/software. It is hoped to form an ASA User Group which will coordinate the development of the wiki (among other things). For the present, Christer (ChristerS) has volunteered to host the wiki and he is the system administrator. Christer, myself and Luke (lukepower) are currently the three wiki administrators. Anyone is able to register and add or edit content - and we hope that all ASA users will want to do this. The wiki is at a very early stage, but the faster we add content the more useful it will be. We would very much welcome input from ASA itself. In particular we would like permission to use existing ASA documentation (which is mostly out of date) as a starting point for producing up to date wiki content.

Before we make a decision regarding where the wiki is hosted we need to be absolutely sure there is a real interest in it from ASA users. As Lukas says, we already have a user community effort under way to create a wiki which can be found here asa-users.org. However so far only 11 users have registered on it. Our understanding is that ASA themselves are unable to make a major commitment to build content for a wiki - it will be up to us to do that. If we all register and contribute just small amounts of content we can grow it very quickly. But if only 3 or 4 people create the content (so far only 3) then it is unlikely to develop very fast. We would really encourage all ASA users to register and contribute - even if only by suggesting topics to be included. Christer is doing a great job at the moment hosting the current wiki and personally I see no need to change the hosting arrangements, but we can talk about that later once we are positive the commitment exists to continue to build the wiki.

Excellent tip to add to the Wiki Mark !

Many thanks Robert. It is strange that they are surprised that users need more documentation. Yes the experienced users have worked most things out, but ASA hopefully wants to sell to new users and those new users need help with the very steep learning curve.

Sorry, I don't have any knowledge of Astro Planner myself.

XSLT translates structured text files (typically XML) from one structure to another. Probably best to see if scripting will do the job first rather than complicate things by adding XSLT into the pipeline, but that may be an option if scripting fails.

What does the Astro Planner exported file look like Daniel? If it is XML it should be simple to use XSLT to translate it.

Bit presumptuous of Microsoft to arbitrarily remove a 3rd party application without warning! They could possibly disable it starting, but removing it entirely is plain wrong. I'm still considering whether to move to Win 10. My observatory runs on Win 7 and having achieved a stable configuration 18 months ago I've turned off auto updates (it's behind both a hardware and software firewall so I consider it safe).