Nexremote For Mac

Posted : admin | On 25-03-2021

it's a wonderful night out but it's butt-freezing cold - what can i do ?

Portable Capture Pro Software - Mac and Windows Versions. Micro Capture Pro Software - Windows Version. Micro Capture Pro Software - Mac Version 2.3.2 Updated 6/15/13. Course Map Manager Software. Amoeba Microscope Software. SkyQLink PC Installer. AstroFX Software. PEC Tool v.1.0.18. Motor Control Firmware Updates. Use Night Vision Mode to reduce the effect of the laptop screen on your eyes. Wireless control of the telescope with Optional Gamepad Support. Connect to your personal GPS device to NexRemote with NexGPS. Download NexRemote updates online to use the latest features. NexRemote must communicate with the telescope via an RS-232 port. Alas, modern computers do not have such a thing. The PC I formerly used to run the program, a seven year-old Toshiba Satellite laptop did not. It did have a PCMCIA card slot, though. I logged onto eBay, bought a PCMCIA serial card for ten bucks, and was ready to rock and roll.

With the weather being as cold and bad as it is right now, i spent some time researching ways to remotely control the telescope without having to leave the comfortable warmth of the house. I would like to be able to do the following:

Remote control the telescope through a planetarium software on a laptop
Remote control my DSLR to take pictures
Remote control a webcam to take planetary images or to track what the scope is looking at when a DSLR camera is used

So far i understand that the following pieces are necessary:

A windows laptop
Planetarium software and necessary drivers that will let you control a telescope
An approximately x meter long serial cable to connect the telescope to a laptop
A webcam that can work in low light conditions and a piece of software that displays what the webcam is seing. I need this webcam since my DSLR does not allow for direct output of finder video data. If it could do that, then i would not need the webcam and could use the DSLR's output directly
An optional finderscope that i can attach the webcam to in order to use it for tracking or guiding
A guiding software that works with a webcam
An active USB repeater of x meter length to get the webcam signal to the laptop
A remote release cable or wireless remote release solution of x meter length for my SLR camera

So far these are the components i've been able to find with great help from the community on www.cloudynights.com. Now to the details:
Windows laptop and the necessary planetarium software
My research showed that there are a couple of nice planetarium applications out there. Not all of them include telescope control features. Some that do offer this are free (Stellarium) and some have to be paid for (Starry Night Pro). I decided to look at Stellarium since it is free. I am using Starry Night Digital Download on my Mac and updating to the Pro version, which would allow for telescope control was over 100USD.
The reason for going with a windows based laptop and not with a macbook was, that it appears that the ASCOM driver plattform as well as the Celestron Nexstar driver are not available for OS X.

So these are the components that i found out you need:

Planetarium Software:Stellarium Software (v.10.2) / Free
Interface to control the Scope via Stellarium: Stellariumscope / Free
Driver Plattform: ASCOMPlatform5b / Free
Driver for the Celestron Nexstar6SE: Celestron (5.0.14) / Free
Webcam: Celestron Neximage / found it on ebay for 99USD
Finderscope: Antares 5x70 finderscope with mounting bracket. This finder allows you to change eyepieces so that an optional webcam can be attached / 130USD
Remote control cable or wireless extension for my Panasonic G1 DSLR: still looking : ( / 38USD on ebay, chinese made)
Serial cable extension: available almost everywhere. No active components are necessary / approx. 10 USD
Active USB cable: available almost everywhere. I bought a 5 meter cable and the instructions on the box say that four of those cables can be strung together/ approx. 20 USD

You can also find most of the above files in my public folder on me.com. Here's the link: http://public.me.com/baierfamily - the password is 'nexstar'

I've received some comments why i did not use the Celestron Nexremote software. That's a good question ! I have no idea where i put the disc when i unpacked the scope ! And from what i could read in the manual, the Nexremote software only seems to emulate the hand controller. You still need a separate planetarium software integration. So until i find the disc up in the attic, i'll have to use the tools i currently have : )

Addition (Jan 15th 2010): I got a nice comment from a cloudynights member called 'kkokkolis' (i think he's from Greece) and he pointed out that the nexremote software adds some nice features like:

Text to speech
Extended balloon search
A virtual port to use nexremote parallel to other software like Stellarium

Thanks Kkokkolis for the input - i'll have to try Nexremote the next time i get a chance !

This is how i installed and set up everything:

Install Stellarium
Install Stellariumscope
Install ASCOM Driver Platform
Install Celestron Driver
Start Stellariumscope and chose the Nexstar 6SE from the list of telescopes. Then hit the 'connect' button
Start Stellarium
Now you get a nice little window with left, right, up and down arrow and when you click on those, then - holy cow - the telescope moves ! I was already quite impressed by then !
Align your telescope. (so far, that's as far as i got because the weather has been so bad, i've not been able to align the telescope yet)

I ordered a 7.5 meter serial cable extension for the standard celestron serial cable which worked flawlessly. I also ordered the neximage webcam on ebay for approx. 100USD. I read online that the necessary USB extensions are quite a different matter and that for anything going above 5 meters a special 'active' USB 'repeater' cable has to be used. So i ordered a 5 meter active extension at a local store.
Now i'm waiting for a good night to align the telescope so that i can see if the point and goto functionality within Stellarium works as designed and i'll have to wait for the neximage webcam as well.
Then i'll have to figure out how to autoguide using the webcam and from what i've seen this seems to be a quite complicated task that'll take me a while to wrap my head around. And it also looks like i'll need yet another off axis guidescope ? Nooooooooo !

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