Comments on: Vixen Star Book FAQ

By: Peter Enzerink

Peter Enzerink — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:56:59 +0000

Hi Georgio. I’m afraid I don’t where you would source spare parts as big as the screen. I suspect that means the main board is damaged so the repair cost would likely be the same as replacement cost.

By: Peter Enzerink

Peter Enzerink — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:55:49 +0000

G’day Ross. The Star Book contains the drive logic so it needs to stay with the telescope. It is a simple matter to connect the Star Book to a wireless bridge such as an Airport Express and control it via its registered IP address using my ASCOM driver or other means. You could optionally make an address reservation in DHCP to avoid the need to update it in the config occasionally when the reservation expires.

By: Ross Elkins

Ross Elkins — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:44:16 +0000

Peter, great site, thanks for sharing your expertise and taking the time to assemble your knowledge. I am awaiting my used SXD mount and one of the first things I will takle is getting a small wireless wifi interface going on the sphinx. I am a network admin and so that struck me as something useful to accomplish. Of course your site has been around awhile and I’m sure its quite possible that this has been done already!
Clear skies, Ross

By: GIORGIO

GIORGIO — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 07:20:47 +0000

HI PETER, MAYBE YOU CAN HELP ME. THE OTHER DAY MY STARBOOK-S ACCIDENTALLY FELL AND BROKE THE LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY. I TRIED SEARCHING ON THE INTERNET A DISPLAY PARTS BUT I CAN NOT FIND IT. KNOW WHERE CAN I FIND AND BUY ANOTHER DISPLAY? THANK’S

By: Rob Burrowes

Rob Burrowes — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:54:47 +0000

/move does work, but only has an effect if the values are from 10 .. 19.

By: Peter Enzerink

Peter Enzerink — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:07:18 +0000

It is best to align the scope then not use the StarBook further as the ASCOM driver will become confused if state is changed outside of the software.

By: Rob Burrowes

Rob Burrowes — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:52:12 +0000

My fault. Sort of. I manually had put the starbook into scope mode. I think this was causing a conflict between your commands and the starbook firmware. Both are trying to control the scope.

I have done a tcpdump of the traffic to see what is happening. The /start command returns an error if the starbook is not in the INIT state. The starbook was already in the SCOPE state. Hence the initial error trying to connect.

The /stop command also returns an error if the scope state had been manually put into SCOPE mode. It doesn’t give the error if the /start command put the starbook into SCOPE mode, though it doesn’t seem to stop the scope either. It does work when the starbook is doing a goto command. It does stop the slew if it is sent then.

I looked at the latitude and longitude in the tcp dump, and they are 1 minute out too, so your driver is returning what it is being given by the starbook, which means the starbook is at fault. The screen shows what I entered.

I found a /gohome?home=0 command too, which returned the scope to the powered on position. Just randomly typing to see what it would do:)

I couldn’t see what the move? command did. Your driver sends it, but the scope didn’t move if I changed the values from 0. The command was not rejected. Is this a set up for another command?

By: Peter Enzerink

Peter Enzerink — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 07:12:38 +0000

Hmm I haven't seen that problem before but I'm not familiar with StellariumScope. You are best off enquiring on the Yahoo Group regarding usage and compatibility as there are many combinations of setup and I've only tested a fraction.

By: Rob Burrowes

Rob Burrowes — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 06:11:50 +0000

MaxIm DL works with your plugin, but not consistently. I had to connect twice, and slewing fails every now and then. I wonder if it is a timing issue with the starbook. I recall having to connect twice to with StellariumScope too.

By: Rob Burrowes

Rob Burrowes — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:02:10 +0000

Is there a document that describes the commands to that the starbook will accept? I was trying to control the mount from a remote site, so an unwell friend (his scope actually) could do a little viewing. Writing a controller for him to use would be easy, if I knew what the protocol was. He has a Mac, which is why I was trying Stellarium and StellariumScope. They can run on different machines, which means the StellariumScope half, which is windows based, could be talked to from the Mac half. Not that I got it working Windows to Windows yet.