Sunday, June 21, 2020
#562: The New NexRemote
Following my re-checkout of my Losmandy GM811G mount after not
having used it for way too long, it was time to get to work on the New
Herschel Project, muchachos. But then
thunder began to rumble. After several days, I threw in the towel and hauled
the scope and my beloved Losmandy inside.
A week later, I thought I might finally get started on the
New Project. The scope and camera to do that would be my Celestron Edge 800
SCT, Emma Peel, and the Mallincam Xtreme. Why not the Mallincam Junior Pro or
Revolution Imager? The need to get some Herschels under my belt.
I’ve used the Xtreme recently (in the course of writing a Sky
& Telescope article) and wouldn’t have to waste time re-familiarizing
myself with the camera. I will certainly get to the other two video cameras,
since many of you have asked about them. While I’ll turn to visual as
well as often as possible, a video camera is usually better suited to the typically
hazy suburban deep sky of Possum Swamp in late spring and early summer.
Initially, Thursday night looked fairly good. The Clear Sky
Clock, Scope Nights, and the Weather Channel were agreeing it would be the
first in a string of relatively passable evenings for observing. But then,
despite the Weather Channel still forecasting “clear,” clouds began to fill the
sky. I set up the Edge and the Celestron Advanced VX mount in the backyard
anyway. What could happen?
Yes, I know I need to get back to the Losmandy mount and get
squared away with the Ethernet interface and other software again, but I had a
motive for setting up the smaller mount. I’d replaced the AVX mount’s Real Time
Clock battery, and, as with the Losmandy, I wanted to make sure the AVX functioned
properly after the change. I had little doubt it would be OK, but you never
know. Also, frankly, the sky was looking worse than ever. The AVX is easier to
lug in and out than the GM811, and I can convince myself to get it into the
backyard even if the weather’s looking dicey.
Also, I would also be able to try something new with the AVX.
Your benighted old Uncle Rod learned something. Celestron’s CPWI
program (“Celestron – Planewave Instruments;” the program was developed in
association with Planewave) now works with the Advanced VX mount—it was
originally exclusive to the CGX models.
Now, no doubt most of y’all already knew that, but
remember, when it comes to astronomy—and more than a few other things—2019 was a lost year for your Uncle. Anyhow, I’d heard
a lot about CPWI. It’s sort of like a modern NexRemote, but with
model building and star charting added, and I was anxious to try it with my AVX
to see if it might fill the same role in the New Project that NexRemote
filled in the old.
So, the plan was, the plan was…get started with CPWI.
I’d go for the gold with the program to include interfacing it to the Celestron
StarSense alignment camera and my Wireless Wingman gamepad (yes, the same
Wingman I used with NexRemote for so many years). If everything was hunky-dory, I might even try
connecting SkyTools 3 to CPWI, which appeared to be possible, and
start running the Herschel list.
“But Uncle Rod, don’t you know SkyTools4 is out?” I do, Skeezix. I even have a copy of the “Imaging”
version, which I reviewed for the Second Edition of Choosing and Using a New CAT. But the imaging version is maybe a little bit of
overkill for what I’d be doing, and I do not yet have a copy of SkyTools
4 Visual, so it would be good, old ST3, which saw me through the original Herschel
Project.
Set up Thursday afternoon was OK, if not exactly a joy—it’s
already awfully warm here. I knew if I waited till the cool of the evening,
though, I might lose the will to mess with all the video gear and the computer,
so I got on it. The AVX and the SCT are not too bad, and I was able to set
everything up without incident. Well, only one. I started to pick up a heavy
equipment case with my “bad” arm and it swiftly told me not to do that.
So, it finally got dark Thursday night just as Rod’s favorite 10-meter net (The Lockdown Fun Net, Thursdays, 1900L, 0000Z, 28.420 MHz) was wrapping
up after a rollicking session that lasted far longer than usual…10-meters was
“open” and we had W2s, W3s, W8s and more check-in for what is usually a local
net here in Four Land. Walking out of the shack, I saw what I pretty much expected to see: brighter stars winking in and out as bands of
clouds and haze began to move in on what had been a clear sky in the afternoon.
Naturally.
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| Typical Possum Swamp spring sky. |
What was it like coming back to polar alignment on the
Advanced VX from the Losmandy? Like most other Chinese mounts, the AVX uses
bolts for altitude and azimuth adjustment. Good thing is these bolts at least
have nice, large handles as compared to the old CG5. Polar aligning the AVX is
more “twitchy,” but it wasn’t hard for me to get the error under 15-arc
seconds. That done, I covered the scope up and went inside to watch the 100th
episode of the exceedingly silly Ghost Adventures on cable TV.
Friday evening found me hoping for at least sucker holes as
darkness arrived in Hickory Ridge. How’d it go? I guess you could say it was a
classic Unk Rod evening. Oh, it started out promisingly enough. The sky
wasn’t exactly clear, but most of it was OK. A check of date and time in
the NexStar HC said ever’thing was cool with the RTC battery. The CPWI
software connected to the AVX through the hand controller without complaint.
OK. Fine Business. Guess I’ll start an alignment, a StarSense alignment.
I mashed the appropriate button, but instead of starting the
alignment, CPWI asked me if I wanted to calibrate the StarSense. I
wasn’t sure if I did nor not. However, I hadn’t used it in a pretty good while
and this was my first time to use it with CPWI, so I thought that might
be a good idea. The program instructed me to slew to a bright star, and even
highlighted some suggestions on the star chart. OK. Well, how about Arcturus. I
clicked goto, and off the mount went.
Despite a very good polar alignment, when the mount stopped,
the star was not in the field of the Mallincam. Alrighty then, I left the deck for the yard and peered through Mrs. Peel’s
Rigel Quick Finder. The star was reasonably close, but no cigar. A degree or
two away, mebbe. I’d just center it up and… Wait. How would I center it? You
cannot use the HC with CPWI interfaced to the mount. “Oh, yeah, a
joystick just like in the NexRemote days.” I’d thought that might be
necessary, and had hauled out the old Wireless Wingman.
I went to the gamepad set up screen where I was told to
press “start” on the Wingman. I did. Repeatedly. What happened? Nuttin’ honey.
So, I spent the next half hour trying everything I could think of to make the
software connect to that old game controller. Nothing worked. What would
I do? I recalled I had a wired Xbox controller in the house. I went in and got
it, plugged it into the USB hub, and the computer made its bing-bong noise and happily
set it up.
OK. Let’s see what CPWI thinks of this one. It
liked the Xbox controller just fine, picking it up immediately and sending me
to a configuration screen. OK, I’ll just take this out to the scope and center
that dad-blasted Arcturus. Sorry, Unk. The cord on the joystick was about
3-feet too short. Luckily, one of my few remaining braincells fired and I
recalled I had a 6-foot USB extension cable. I even knew where it was. Fetched
it, plugged it between Xbox controller and PC, and had enough slack to get my
eye behind the Quick Finder. I centered that pesky star well enough that it was
visible on the Mallincam display, and went back to the PC and did the fine
centering with the Mallincam’s crosshair overlay and CPWI’s virtual HC.
The program seemed right happy then. Said it had done a
plate solve and yadda-yadda-yadda, did I want to start an automatic StarSense
alignment? I darned sure did after wasting so much time. Ha! Clouds were
pouring in from the west now, impelling me to throw the Big Switch.
So, yeah, it was a prototypal Unk Rod evening. But as with
most of those, I learned some stuff about CPWI—mostly how to navigate the new software—and
now felt fairly comfortable with it. What next? Well, Saturday evening was
slated to be about the same as Friday. If I could just get one freaking H-400
in the can, your old Uncle would be a happy camper.
The sky was clearing nicely late Friday afternoon, but
then, as I was out for my evening stroll around Hickory Ridge, my phone beeped
with a notification from the cotton-picking Weather Channel. The sky was pretty
and blue, but this missive insisted there were severe thunderstorms just to the
west. Nevertheless, I thought I’d be OK; it looked like the storms would slide
past us to the northwest.
About half way through watching the latest episode of Harley
Quinn’s show, I figgered I’d better check on the scope and all (I’d uncovered
Mrs. Peel and had everything ready to go on the deck—computer, video display,
etc.). One look at the sky, and I covered the scope up in a hurry and moved the
rest of the stuff inside. It was just getting dark, but it was still light
enough for Unk to see threatening clouds blowing in from the West. There was a
strong breeze stirring and a feel in the air that portended “b-a-d weather
coming.”
There was bad weather coming, culminating in a
forebodingly early Tropical Storm, Cristobal, in advance of which, I naturally
moved mount and telescope inside. The storm was minor in nature, but it did
bring wind gusts of 30mph and dump about 6-inches of rain, so it was good Mrs.
Peel was safe and snug inside.
Following the storm, the weather improved slowly. It wasn’t
good enough for me to get Emma and the Xtreme out, but it was good enough for
me to get my old friend, my ETX125, Charity Hope Valentine, out of her case and
working again (which you read about last week). That night with Charity Hope
Valentine became Night One of the New Project if just barely. I observed a
grand total of exactly one object. After that, I sat and waited for
better conditions, which it appeared might come the following Tuesday.
 |
| CPWI's initial display. |
First task once the stars winked on Tuesday night was to see
if I could really get CPWI pointing at objects and, just as importantly,
interfaced to SkyTools 3. If either thing didn’t work well or reliably,
I’d just go back to using the (StarSense) hand control with SkyTools and/or
Stellarium. Both things had to work if CPWI were to be part of
the New Herschel Project, if it were to be the new NexRemote.
Alrighty, then. I decided to start out with just an
eyepiece. Leaving the Xtreme out of the picture initially would allow me to
focus on CPWI. So, my good old 13mm Ethos went into the William Optics
SCT diagonal I’d screwed onto (ahem) Emma’s rear. That would yield 154x, and
despite the eyepiece’s large field would give CPWI’s pointing prowess a
good test (I left the reducer off so the scope would be working at f/10).
Polar alignment complete and mount powered on, I started CPWI
on the laptop and was presented by the display you see above. Next step was getting
the mount talking to the software by choosing the connection type under the
Connection menu on the left toolbar. There are three possibilities: Hand Controller, Wi-Fi, or USB. Most of us
will use Hand Controller, which means you’ve got a Celestron serial cable (or a
USB cable) plugged into the base of the HC. If you’ve got a Celestron Evolution
scope or one of their wi-fi dongles on another Celestron rig, you’ll use “Wi-Fi.”
Finally, Celestron’s CGX German mounts allow you to use a USB cable plugged directly
into a USB port on the mount.
 |
| Select your alignment method. |
If you choose to do a “manual” alignment, a CPWI alignment, the program will select four points (stars) it believes are good alignment choices, and you’ll center and accept them much as you would with a hand control. The difference with CPWI is you can continue adding as many points to the sky model as desired.
Unk, lazy sort he is, naturally had the StarSense hooked to
the mount. Since I’d calibrated it on a star on my previous night out with the
software, all I had to do was start the normal StarSense four-star-field automatic
alignment. That wasn’t much different than it would have been with the hand
control except I could read what the camera was doing on the laptop screen
instead of having to squint at a tiny hand control display. After about the
same amount of time it would have taken the hand control, CPWI announced
we were aligned.
If, unlike Unk, you have not already polar aligned the
mount, you may do an AllStar Polar Alignment with the program following either
type of goto alignment. Let me add that many of the usual hand control features like
PPEC, parking, changing slew rates, etc. can be done with CPWI. Which is
a good thing, since as mentioned earlier you cannot use your hand control at
the same time you are using the program. It is in a “boot loader” mode and
utterly unresponsive.
“Hokay. Let’s see if CPWI aligned anything.” Peering
around the patio umbrella on the deck and up at the sky showed bright Arcturus
riding high. I located the sparkler on CPWI’s star map, clicked on it, clicked
“slew,” and the mount and Mrs. Peel headed for the star just as they would have
done with Stellarium or any other program. Trotted out to the scope, and
there was Arcturus sitting pretty in the field center.
 |
| Ready to begin a StarSense alignment. |
How did I do that nudging? Well, I could have had the laptop
set up next to the scope and used the program’s onscreen direction buttons, but
that wouldn’t have been very convenient. Instead, I used the Xbox gamepad. It
took a little fumbling to get it going again, but when I did, it worked just
ducky for the rest of the evening. If you are going to be using CPWI
without a StarSense, a gamepad is vital because you’ll be centering
numerous stars to do your goto alignment. A wireless PC or Xbox gamepad would
be best. Me? Since I’m mainly gonna be sitting at the PC and viewing images on
a video screen, my wired controller is more than adequate.
I sent the scope to quite a few other targets, no problem. Well,
other than most looked pretty putrid in the haze. All that remained now was to
get SkyTools 3 running with CPWI, attach the Mallincam to the
scope, and knock off some Herschels.
After using SkyTools with NexRemote for so
many years, the concept of using it with CPWI was easy to
understand: I’d connect SkyTools
to the scope through the program, not directly. The procedure for doing
that is different than with NexRemote, but the result is the same.
Instead of establishing a virtual port for SkyTools with NexRemote,
what you do with this modern software is start up SkyTools’ Realtime (its
goto module) and use the ASCOM Chooser to select “CPWI” as the
telescope.
As with the Gamepad, it took a little of Unk’s patented fooling
around to get it going, but once I did, SkyTools 3 worked
faultlessly with CPWI. I’d click on an object on my SkyTools
observing list, SkyTools would announce “Slewing telescope!” (in its
sexy British-accented female voice), and we’d go to the object. That was all
there was to it.
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| SkyTools 3 with "always on top" CPWI hand control. |
Summing up? I am not feeling particularly charitable toward
Celestron at the moment—you will find out why next week—but regarding this (free)
software, I gotta say they done good. It is not perfect, but it
certainly workable. Most of the improvements that are needed concern the star
map (for example, why no constellation labels?). I do understand most of the
program’s development, which has been slow, has had to be concerned with
getting alignment and connectivity issues resolved. Anyhoo, now they need to
spiff up the star map. Also, a little more gamepad functionality would be nice. As is, all you can do is move the telescope (fast or slow) with it.
At any rate, I am convinced CPWI and SkyTools 3 (or Deep Sky Planner, which I'll check out with CPWI next time) are what I will use initially for the New Herschel Project—when I use the
Celestron mount, anyway. CPWI has got a feel a lot like good, old NexRemote.
Enough of a feel that I’m not missing my favorite piece of astronomy software quite
as much as I was, muchachos.
Comments:
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Dear Uncle Rod,
Thanks for the interesting post, as always. One suggestion to ease centering in the future, instead of having to nudge the mount. Since you're already using SharpCap, you can use its plate solving feature which (1) read the coordinates from the mount, via CPWI; (2) solve the image to see where the mount is actually pointing and (3) re-point the mount so that the target is dead in the center of the view. This works equally well even if the target is not even visible in the image, but the mount is still pointing roughly in the area. You can use this also to add stars to the pointing model or to calibrate StarSense. Basically, no more need to nudge anything in order to center anything. Instructions are available at
https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/features/plate-solving
Hope this helps and clear skies!
Wilhelm
Thanks for the interesting post, as always. One suggestion to ease centering in the future, instead of having to nudge the mount. Since you're already using SharpCap, you can use its plate solving feature which (1) read the coordinates from the mount, via CPWI; (2) solve the image to see where the mount is actually pointing and (3) re-point the mount so that the target is dead in the center of the view. This works equally well even if the target is not even visible in the image, but the mount is still pointing roughly in the area. You can use this also to add stars to the pointing model or to calibrate StarSense. Basically, no more need to nudge anything in order to center anything. Instructions are available at
https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/features/plate-solving
Hope this helps and clear skies!
Wilhelm
# posted by 
: 9:05 PM
: 9:05 PM
Hi Rod! I just recently rediscovered your resurrected Astro Blog, and am excited you are back. The back catalog of blog entries have been a treasure trove of insight for me over the years, and I'm truly grateful for all the help.
Your most recent experience with CPWI seems to have been somewhat more successful than mine. Despite creating a dead-on pointing model with 12 reference stars, I've found the GOTO capability to be quite inferior to the good ol' hand controller on my CGEM. Curious to see if you encounter similar in future sessions. Please keep us posted!
Clear skies,
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Your most recent experience with CPWI seems to have been somewhat more successful than mine. Despite creating a dead-on pointing model with 12 reference stars, I've found the GOTO capability to be quite inferior to the good ol' hand controller on my CGEM. Curious to see if you encounter similar in future sessions. Please keep us posted!
Clear skies,
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