Wifi Connections Between Scope and Laptop

So, this installment of the series didn’t work out quite like I expected. While, in theory, everything I describe below ought to work, I found problems maintaining the wifi connectivity between the NexStar mount and my laptop. Thus, all I can say is give it a whirl if you want, but I make no guarantees. I’m leaving the instructions up here in case you feel the need to give it a try. If you really want to use your laptop to control your NexStar scope, wired is probably best (although I’ve had some success with bluetooth, too, which I’ll cover in another installment).

In Part 2 of this series we went over the basic setup for connecting your NexStar to a laptop using a wired connection. It works great, but cables between your telescope and laptop can be a real nuisance, because you have to start worrying about the cables wrapping around the telescope as it slews in azimuth (although turning “Cord Wrap” on in the hand controller can mitigate that). In general, cables in the dark seem to me like a recipe for disaster. So in this installment, we’re going to cover connections between telescope and laptop using Wifi. (The next installment of this series will cover using a smartphone or tablet instead of a laptop to connect with the NexStar via wifi.)

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Wired Connections Between Scope and Laptop

In Part 1 of this series, I discussed some of the reasons why you might want to use your laptop or tablet to control your NexStar, and went over some of the options for how you can accomplish that. In this part of the series we’ll get a laptop set up to control your NexStar using the Stellarium software package through a wired connection between the scope and the laptop. With Stellarium, you’ll be able to point and click to easily slew your scope to any object you’d like. Stellarium also is capable of showing a ton of information about that object. It also provides a very pleasing and easy-to-use interface. We’ll go through the process from start to finish. Even if you decide to use a different connection type (WiFi or Bluetooth), the instructions for Stellarium will remain pretty-much the same.

The fundamental requirement for controlling your NexStar with a computer of some sort is, of course, establishing communications between the two. As far as I know, a wired connection can only be done between a computer with a serial port or a USB port and the scope–tablets are not supported for wired connections (but let me know in the comments below if you know of a way).

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Links to other parts in this series:

• Part 2: Wired connections between your telescope and laptop

Introduction and Overview

Since I purchased my Celestron NexStar 6SE a few years ago, I’ve enjoyed dorking around with the different ways I can drive the thing with a computer of one sort or another. Of course, you can use the NexStar SE just fine with only the hand controller, but where’s the fun in that? Truthfully, while it’s certainly usable, the hand controller’s interface is a bit on the clunky side–especially when wading through its menus to find some DSO to which you’d like to slew. I much prefer to be able to use a planetarium app like Stellarium or SkySafari to find and slew to objects of interest.

As I investigated the possibilities, I learned that there are quite a few different ways you can control your NexStar SE with a computer. For starters, the connection between your scope and the computer can be wired (through a serial or USB port), WiFi, or even Bluetooth. Then, once the connection is established, you have quite a few apps from which to choose to do the actual controlling. All of the possible configurations of connection and control have their positives and negatives, and which one might work best for someone depends largely on their own personal preferences.

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So, you probably saw the post I put up a day or two ago about having just gotten a Celestron NexStar 6SE telescope. I’ve been having a ball with it so far. My plan last night was to try using my digital camera to take some video of Jupiter and then run it through Registax software to see what came out of it. I followed the instructions posted on this page at Stargazer’s Lounge. I can’t claim to have done anything original here–just followed the cookbook.

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I’ve never been crazy about my Meade Starfinder 8″ equatorial Newtonian telescope. The optics seem fine, but the mount is heavy, hard to move, and hard to use. Even with my digital setting circles it’s difficult to get the thing pointed exactly where you want it, and a modest breeze can make it almost unusable. Even getting it set up was a chore. So I didn’t really use it much, and I felt bad about that. So, a week ago I decided to buy myself a new telescope, and this time I chose something much more compact–a Celestron NexStar 6SE SCT.

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