To use Guide, a planetarium program by Project Pluto (Bill
Gray):
1. Simply select 'guide.bat' option from scope.exe's menu. Make
sure that the 'wguide.exe' program is in c:\guide.
Guide will
show you where the scope is pointing, and upon exiting Guide, Guide's
last coordinates will be displayed in the Input equatorial fields.
Select move to input, or reset to input.
2. To run concurrently with Guide6.exe, the Win95 version of
Guide, configure Guide6 by going to Settings, then Scope Control.
Select an unused comm port, and pick 'altaz'. You will see a
new drop down menu option appear, "Scope Pad". Select
it. Be careful not to move the mouse as the cursor's position
is used to send coordinates. To send coordinates from
guide6.exe to scope.exe, select 'slew scope' on the scope pad menu.
To receive coordinates into Guide6.exe from scope.exe, select 'slew
guide'. To send coordinates from scope.exe to guide6.exe, use
the hotkey '8', to receive coordinates into scope.exe from
guide6.exe, use the hotkey '7'.
There are several methods to communicate with other astronomical software such as planetarium and control programs.
- via explicitedly calling the DOS version of Guide
- via the
serial/modem port using lx200 protocol commands
- via agreed upon
slew files
- via the IACA
Calling the DOS version of Guide via the menu option 'guide.bat'
or the hotkey '`' (left apostrophe), does the following:
1.
rewrites the startup.mar file that Guide uses to set its startup
position
2. exits to DOS and calls guide.bat, which launches
Guide
3. upon Guide's exit, Scope.exe reads startup.mar to
ascertain the last coordinates that Guide used
4. these
coordinates are placed in the input equatorial fields
Using the serial port to read and write lx200 protocol commands:
This is available if the lx200 serial port is set to 1 or 2 in
the config.dat file.
Realtime display of lx200 commands processed
and the character buffer is available if the menu option display
LX200 is turned on.
Use a serial full null modem cable adapter to
connect between the two serial ports.
Set the ports to 9600 baud,
8 databits, 1 stop bit, no parity.
It may be possible to use the
modem. See http://www.ghg.net/cshaw/modem.htm
for details.
Scope.exe can also communicate via two agreed upon files, using
menu selections read slew and write slew or hotkeys '7' and '8'.
These files are located typically in the controlling planetarium
program subdirectory, pointed to by the config.dat's InterfacePath
variable, ie, c:\guide\
The file that is used to read in
coordinates from the controlling planetarium program is called
slew.dat and has two lines with the following format:
R
<Ra degrees>
D <Dec
degrees>
The file that is used to write coordinates to the
controlling planetarium program is called slew_out.dat and has one
line with the following format:
R
<Ra degrees> <Dec degrees>
Any
controlling program can thus add a little software to communicate
with Scope.exe in this manner.
Finally, the IACA can be used under DOS multitasking programs such
as Windows 3.x:
The Intra-Application Communication Area is a 16
byte area starting at 0040:00F0 that DOS sets aside to allow programs
to communicate with each other; this area is used to exchange
coordinates between the scope control program and graphically
oriented CD-ROM planetarium programs such as Guide; the planetarium
program's coordinates serve as input to the scope,
the scope
program tells the planetarium program where the scope is pointing;
coordinates are assumed to be precessed to the current date; each
program, at startup, sets all coordinates initially to zero: this
way, when non-zero coordinates are found, it can be assumed that the
other program put them there; ie,
long iaca_ra = *(long far*)
(0x4f0);
long iaca_dec = *(long far*) (0x4f4);
long scope_ra
= *(long far*) (0x4f8);
long scope_dec = *(long far*) (0x4fc);
double scope_ra_in_decimal_hours = (double) scope_ra / 1.e+7;
double scope_dec_in_decimal_degrees = (double) scope_dec / 1.e+7;