{"id":10318,"date":"2023-04-30T15:17:07","date_gmt":"2023-04-30T19:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/?p=10318"},"modified":"2023-05-02T11:22:09","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T15:22:09","slug":"commissioning-a-new-observatory-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/2023\/04\/commissioning-a-new-observatory-computer\/","title":{"rendered":"Commissioning a new observatory computer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/hpmini.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/hpmini-299x195.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"195\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-10322\" srcset=\"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/hpmini-299x195.jpg 299w, https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/hpmini-150x98.jpg 150w, https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/hpmini.jpg 577w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 299px) 100vw, 299px\" \/><\/a>The existing laptop has been used as a telescope mount control and image capture  for a few years.  It has had its issues&#8230;<br \/>\nUSB2 only (not USB3 which most astro cameras use these days), and it intermittently locked up for seconds at a time.<br \/>\nSo a refurbished (from amazon) mini computer came along to replace it, at under $200 Can.<br \/>\nhp elitedesk 800 G3 mini\u00a0  CoreI5@2.5GHz, 16GB DDR4, 256GB NVME, 480GB SSD, graphics intel HD 530 , HDMI 1920*1080<br \/>\nThis had more RAM, faster solid state drives, and most importantly USB3<\/p>\n<p>Observatory Configuration:<br \/>\nSerial-USB Adapter (Prolific PL-23xx)<br \/>\nMount: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6GT<br \/>\nTelescope Vixen VC-200L<br \/>\nCamera: ZWO ASI290MC<br \/>\nRemote Focuser: PCFC JMI?<br \/>\nSkywatcher Synscsn Hand Controller<\/p>\n<p>This is the list of software that needed to be installed and configured to get the observatory operational again.<\/p>\n<p>prolific serial-usb adapter PX23XX v206, configured to com11 in my case<br \/>\nAscom Platform v6.61 \u2013 file ascomplatform661.3673.exe<br \/>\nthe file synscan_hand_controller_ascom_driver606262setup.exe dated 2021-07-26 has installed an ascom telescope chooser that says skywatcher! (this was the critical piece)<br \/>\nZWOASI_camera driver v3.2<br \/>\nFirecapture v2.7.12 (imaging program)<br \/>\nskychart  v4.2.1-4073 (primary sky chart and telescope controller)<br \/>\nstellarium 23.1 (backup sky chart and telescope controller)<br \/>\nSharpcap v4.0.9545.0   (2023 march) (backup imaging program)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The existing laptop has been used as a telescope mount control and image capture for a few years. It has had its issues&#8230; USB2 only (not USB3 which most astro cameras use these days), and it intermittently locked up for seconds at a time. So a refurbished (from amazon) mini computer came along to replace [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10318"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10326,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10318\/revisions\/10326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starlightcascade.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}