A race against new moon time for my Nexus DSC Pro

[ma...@astrospotter.com]

Having had my eyes on this Nexus DSC Pro for a great many moons now they are back in stock and I pulled the trigger. 

I have a SkyComander on my StarMaster Big-A-Dob.   The 'main' encoder jack looks totally compatible so I 'think' the push-to will be 'easy' but still crossing fingers.    

The 'serial line' smaller connector will require an adapter so I'll have to make that up with parts I have anyway.  The serial line connector is required for some tracking and goto operations.   StarMaster scopes use the SkyTracker and not the ServoCat so I anticipate some dorking about but still hope to be pleasantly surprised as a 'bonus gift'.  I have all pinouts for both sides and cable tools and all that stuff, it is a matter of me not mucking up the interface board I must make.

I will be happy if I can get this puppy on the Big-Ol-Dob by next weekend even for PushTo which is my prime field use case anyway.  Now since I got this I hope I don't 'jinx' the new moon ... maybe not cause it is not technically new optics which SURELY jinxes everyone the more so based on the aperature I belive it is ...     Lol.    

Also as they said in Game Of Thrones .... Winter Is Coming

Clear Skies,

Marko

[Ido Greiman]

Congrats on the new piece of equipment!

Crossing fingers that everything will work surprisingly smooth. Hope to see it in action next weekend.

Ido

[Steve Gottlieb]

Here are a few Nexus DSC settings I'm using with my StarMaster/SkyTracker and 10k encoders.  Notice the Serial communication protocol is set to Sky Commander, though perhaps this has to do with the cable adapter mod I’m using.  Might be useful to you or others.  As you mentioned, PushTo shouldn’t be an issue.

Steve

Telescope Settings:
-10000,-10000 / Alt-Az / D,D

Adjust:
Mount Type: Alt-Az
AZ Encoder Steps: -10000
Alt Encoder Steps: -10000

Communication Settings:
USB:
Communication Protocol: SkyTracker

Baud Rate: 9600   Stop Bits: 1

Data Bits: 8  Parity: None

Serial
Communication Protocol: Sky Commander
Baud Rate: 9600   Stop Bits: 1
Data Bits: 8  Parity: None

--
TAC Astro-Classifieds: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sf-bay-tac/extFBoHlCe4
 
Observing Sites, Observing Reports, About TAC linked at top of:
 
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sf-bay-tac
 
Subscribers post to the mailing list at:
 
sf-ba...@googlegroups.com,
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Astronomy Connection (TAC)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sf-bay-tac+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/dc5ea88a-cd13-43c0-835f-7c0e6a66623fn%40googlegroups.com.

[ma...@astrospotter.com]

Very helpful (as usual) Steve!    I may just get this scope up complete with ipad sky safari pro and goto if I wire my adapter properly for the smaller serial RJ11 connector.   I look forward to taking a bit of Steve's vast experience with me each time I use the Nexus, even if I rarely get out to observe with Steve much these last couple years he will be there 'in spirit' or rather 'in bits'.    That is so cool AND deserved!

[ma...@astrospotter.com]

Got the Nexus DSC Pro on Wed.   My StarMaster used 10000 step encoders and a SkyTracker drive system.
As an experienced embedded software box writing kind of guy (see www.mark-toys.com)  I can say that the Nexus DSC Pro is VERY well thought out and has great diagnostic test ability to verify scope settings.
I was even prior to this impressed with seeing this unit at several field events.   I went from SkyCommander DSC box  which is very basic but still was very functional to this Nexus DSC Pro and skipped the in between step of Argus Navis which I thought was nice but not nice enough to make the switch just yet from Sky Commander.

Although just in my garage I did an alignment sort of 'winging it' on where stars were and it accepted the align and even tells you it thinks the cal was some level of degrees off but accepted.

The tricky part was I had to make an adapter for the serial connection to the SkyTracker system but the documents for both my SkyTracker as well as the fine coverage of this Nexus DSC Pro in terms of pinouts and describing what pins do was very nicely done and it all just worked with my adapter.   I have more parts and the 'formula' should somebody else be faced with Nexus DSC Pro and a SkyTracker.

Now if we can just get some nice skies which don't seem very likely this month but perhaps next month.

Marko