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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
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    13

    Default Multiple Telescopes on one Mount

    HI,

    I'm working with my daughter's school to design a remote observatory.

    We plan on having a widefield telescope with a colour CCD and a narrowfield telescope with a monochrome CCD on one mount.

    I am aware that ACP does not deal with multiple telescopes at once. I have seen a post were you said that ACP, Maxim, and Focusmax would need to be reconfigured and restarted to change between telescope-camera systems.

    To simplify the change between telescopes, I have considered using two virtual computers running on the one physical PC? One virtual computer could be configured for each telescope-camera system and have an individual pointing model for the mount as each telescope would be slightly different in alignment. The two virtual computers would never be running at the same time - no point in trying to image through both scopes at once as their fields of view wouldn't necessarily overlap.

    Would this be possible under the licence agreement for ACP? Each virtual PC would have a different IP address.

    If not, I assume we will be able to come up with a scripting process to reconfigure the software programs to change between telescopes, but the virtual PCs would hopefully make the process easier for the teachers involved in the program.

    Thanks,

    David Trappett

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Mesa, AZ
    Posts
    33,158

    Default

    The best way to handle your situation is to use ACP, MaxIm, and FocusMax "profile/configuration" features to save the settings for each configuration. It then takes only a few minutes to change from one to the next assuming you do not need to physically plug and unplug things. The latter would not be done on a remote system of course. The profile changes cannot themselves be scripted. It will require a login to the desktop of the observatory computer to do that.
    -- Bob

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
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    13

    Default

    Thanks for the reply Bob,

    If the school IT department wanted to go with virtual computers (there are some advantages when students are involved including it being easier to reinstall a corrupted system), would what I proposed be possible under the ACP licence agreement?

    Regards,

    DT

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Mesa, AZ
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    Default

    You can do whatever you want as long as one physical telescope is used on one license. Putting two optical setups on one mount is considered one telescope by us as long as only one optical setup is used at a time.

    No problem with running in a Virtual Machine, but now you have two OS that need to be kept up with Microsoft Updates, drivers for your astronomical devices, the ASCOM Platform, MaxIm, FocusMax, and ACP. To me that's twice the system administration headache but hey I'm not an IT guy.
    -- Bob

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
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    13

    Default

    Thanks again for your prompt reply,

    I appreciate your comments - the whole project is a learning curve for me. We may well start with one system and see how that works. It's good to know the virtual computers are an option for what we want to do.

    Another query this has made me think of - If I were to use one computer and change configurations, would that configuration be capable of applying a pre-saved pointing model for each telescope or would ACP have to generate a pointing model each time I change between telescopes? (Would I be able to do this by loading a presaved pointing model in MaxPoint???)

    DT

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Mesa, AZ
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    Default

    Yes, I would start simple. Why bother with one virtual machine unless you want to run Windows on a Mac with e.g. Parallels.

    I didn't see what type of mount you are considering, but with most higher end ones you won't need an external pointing corrector. In any case, ACP has its own pointing corrector based on MaxPoint technology (but self-learning!). If you do use ACP'S pointing corrector you can save and restore models when changing configurations. It would be unusual to need this though.

    Anyway, if you use one of the modern/better mounts, it will have its own built-in model. With ACP you never need MaxPoint.
    -- Bob

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Posts
    13

    Default

    Thanks Bob.

    Planning to use an AP1600GTO with absolute encoders. Hopefully by the time we get around to building this, the GTO4 will be well field tested.

    One final query,

    Do you know if the Digital Loggers 240VAC power board is compatible with the ASCOM driver - we use heavy duty electricity in Australia ;-)

    DT

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
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    Mesa, AZ
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    Default

    With the AP mount you will not need (nor should you use) the ACP pointing corrector or MaxPoint.

    You would need to ask Digital Loggers for a definitive answer but I would be quite surprised if their 120 vs 240 units were any different operationally. Good choice due to its ASCOM compatibility.
    -- Bob

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
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    Default

    Thanks,

    Sorry, one more query,

    The proposed site is remote and internet access is by cellular link. Is it possible to script ACP to shutdown the observatory in the event of an internet failure for say, 60 mins?

    Ta
    DT

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Mesa, AZ
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    Default

    That would need to be engineered outside of ACP, but... why? Suppose you started a 5 hour run and the observatory was happily chugging along taking images.... and the internet fades out. There's nothing to stop ACP from continuing to acquire images (well unless the weather goes unsafe, but that has nothing to do with the internet connection).
    -- Bob

 

 

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