nakbrooks

I'm travelling now between the UK and my observatory in France which I am recommissioning (I don't use it during the summer). I'll check out your pages when I arrive tomorrow.

Yes that would be good. It would also be good to try and build a change log so users know what the differences are between different versions of Autoslew, Sequence, ACC, etc. At least the major changes between official releases (maybe not sub-versions).

We must remember that most of those writing the wiki content will be beta users but many of those reading the content will be using only the latest official release (or maybe an older one). So it is important we make clear what version screenshots and documentation refers to.

Getting the structure right is important. Christer's suggested structure is a good start. Maybe we need to try and agree a draft structure here in this thread rather than have everyone changing the wiki directly? Probably only a small number of admins should be able to change the structure. We also need to decide who can add and edit content. I suggest that anyone can read content but only registered users can add or edit content (to prevent vandalism by anyone on the Internet). To be a registered user maybe you should own ASA equipment, as probably only people who own ASA kit are qualified to advise on its use. Important to get things like structure and access rights agreed very early. What do people think?

I have emailed Dietmar (with copy to Egon) to ask if ASA would be supportive of a User Group and wiki and whether they would allow us to use their existing documentation as a starting point. Hopefully we will get an early answer so we can take this project forward.

I agree with Luke that MediaWiki would be the best software. I don't know much about BlueSpice but agree it seems to add useful functionality. The only thing I'm not sure about is that BlueSpice is designed for Enterprise use (eg LDAP authentication, tight security, etc), so just want to be sure it would be fine in an open community environment.

Who else is planning to go to AME (at Schwenningen on Saturday 10 September)? If there were enough interested people we could possibly organise a meeting to discuss formation of an ASA Users Group, with a documentation project? I was not planning to go myself (I would have to fly from Toulouse to Strasbourg then 2 hour drive) but I could come if there was a real possibility of starting a Users Group and getting the documentation project off the ground. Add your name here if you are serious about coming.

Robert - that would be great. ASA need to either commit to decent up to date documentation or allow their user community to do what we can to improve it.

Provided the wiki has a good WYSIWYG editor it would be easier to edit the text within the wiki than offline. Wikis also mean a different way of thinking. There is no such thing as editorial control - any user can edit the content and it evolves through community consensus. Can be quite difficult to get your mind around, but it works.

I agree that importing existing manuals is the best starting point. However ASA own the IP in those manuals so will have to give consent. Who is best-placed to discuss this with ASA?

I think a wiki is definitely the way to go. However we mustn't underestimate the effort involved i creating a wiki that meets the needs of beginners through to experts, covers all ASA equipment and is kept up to date as new software versions come out. If it were easy ASA would do it themselves!! This will only work if we have multiple webmasters/moderators - otherwise we will be too dependant on a single individual who may lose enthusiasm for the project. This why I think the first step must be the creation of an ASA Users Group that can own the wiki project.

I would suggest that this should be a project for an ASA Users Group and that such a Group should arrange the creation and hosting of the wiki, independent of ASA (but preferably with their support). I think it is important that ASA do not have editorial control and do not have the power to arbitrarily edit or remove the wiki. A paid-for hosting service would be more reliable than a free one and would not be expensive - maybe a few hundred dollars per year. I am sure this could be funded by donations from interested users (I would certainly donate a modest amount myself). MediaWiki is the most widely-used and widely hosted wiki software (it is what Wikipedia uses) so is probably the best choice. The software itself is free so if necessary the initial version of the site could be built using a private server and then uploaded to a hosted service once it has reached a critical mass of content and becomes self-sustaining in terms of content authorship. The wiki project would definitely need to be led by someone with experience of creating wikis as there are a lot of practical issues to be addressed (is it an open or closed community? Can anyone edit content? What content moderation arrangements are put in place, etc, etc). I do not have any wiki experience myself. Probably step 1 is the formation of a user group. This would be useful, quite apart from the wiki, as a means of giving the user community a focus for communicating constructively with ASA. Who would be interested in taking an active part in forming an ASA Users Group, with a wiki as one of its projects?

It's been suggested and would be a great idea. Needs someone with both the time and knowledge to get it started though. It's not a trivial task as it needs to cover both beginners and more experienced users and, ideally, be multilingual.

Thanks Luke

I am thinking of implementing a dual boot option on my observatory PC. One boot option will retain the official public releases of ASA software, running under Windows 7 (this is my current config and works fine). The second boot option will run the beta releases under Windows 10. Does anyone else have a dual-boot system like this - and have they had any problems? Also does it make any difference to the ASA software whether I install the Home or Professional version of Windows 10? Thanks Nigel

Make sure you type it in the Google search box - not the URL box. It should return just one result, but if you click "repeat the search with the omitted results included" it will list about 9 pages of pdf files.

As we all know, ASA documentation is a major problem, with no comprehensive up to date manuals readily available. However buried deep in the ASA web site (only accessible via Google, not via the download links on the site) is a folder that appears to be the documentation repository. Type: "site:www.astrosysteme.at/images/" (without the quotes) into Google to list the folder contents. Much of the documentation is only in German, a lot is very out of date, but it does include short notes on detailed aspects, that many of us have been given by ASA in response to questions, but which are not more widely published. This may or may not help newcomers who are struggling!

Almost certainly it was a very bad decision. Certainly in the scientific arena ut raises a lot of funding issues. My son will be looking for PhD funding next year, currently mostly from EU agencies. During the 2 year BREXIT negotiations I can't see many UK students getting EU money and the UK agencies won't have new money yet. His girlfriend's dad is a chemistry professor whose projects are all EU collaborations and their future is very uncertain. I don't trust a UK government to properly fund science. They don't have the vision.

Dietmar is in Austria. Email is d.weinzinger@astrosysteme.at although the support email is the official one to use. I also have had excellent service - although if the documentation were better it would reduce the need for service calls.

Hmm, I'll do well to match that. That's about 0.25mm of adjustment on the bolts. Difficult as with this pier you have to adjust in 3 dimensions (Alt, Az and E/W cant), all with several 100kg loaded.

Just a quick question. How accurate do most people try and get their physical polar alignment (particularly for static installations) before doing Autoslew polar alignment? Autoslew obviously compensates for imperfect physical alignment, but there are limits. Presumably if it is sufficiently imprecise then rotational effects will cause a problem on long exposures at longer focal lengths? This is of interest to me because I use the DDM85XL with the equatorial pier and physical alignment requires the whole pier to be adjusted - not easy. Just wondering how good is good enough. My F/L is 3,200mm.

Is there any up to date documentation of anything at all !

Thanks for that Ian - worked fine. And just to say it was great meeting you a couple of weeks ago during our trip to Australia. We are 20,000 km apart but sharing the same issues in getting the superb but undocumented ASA kit to work consistently. I will redouble my efforts!

Ah I understand. Thanks Bernard.

Thanks John. I assumed it couldn't be a standard upgrade.