Feature request: Telescope Interface

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It would be great to have an interface to computerized telescopes such as Meade 
Autostar. Just long press an object and the telescope will slew like in 
Stellarium.

Is it possible? If yes:

Connection will be made via Bluetooth Serial-Port-Profile.

I'm new to Android-development and java in general, so i don't know exactly 
where to implement this feature, but I can test/debug with my telescope.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by atusche...@googlemail.com on 28 Feb 2012 at 5:05

[GoogleCodeExporter]

atusche I'm seeing if I can stir up some interest in that combined with the 
Skywatcher Panorama app (source available via 
http://code.google.com/p/skywatcher/source/checkout ) via the IceInSpace 
website http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=89798 .

Not real sure how to get something like that going but hoping that by pointing 
how much is already available it may not be a big stretch. Happy to receive 
advice on how to get something like that happening or be pointed at others who 
may already have it underway.

The Panorama stuff seems to have a very good start on the telescope control 
side of things although I've not worked out how many telescope models are 
currently covered in the code. I assume that if the command sets are known it 
should not be too hard to add in extra scopes (or new projects created for 
different scopes using the same intent structure.

My thinking is that some standards should be defined for intents for telescope 
control (similar to the way ASCOM standards are used with PC's), some 
functionality added to stardroid to initiate a slew and the relevant portions 
of Panorama set up to work as a service.

I'm very new to android programming so I may be missing something fundamental 
but it does not look as though it should be a big job to take what's already 
there and create a very well featured telescope controller.

I've not explored panorama's camera control at all yet so I don't know what 
camera's it connects to. So far I have used Panorama from a Galaxy tab 10.1 
P7510 to do some basic control of a Skywatcher EQ6Pro.

Bob

Original comment by BobSteph...@gmail.com on 21 Apr 2012 at 11:03

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There is some serois work going on at the moment by me implementing an Android 
INDI-Server for hardware independent access to astronomical instruments. Thanks 
to INDIforJava this isn't a big problem. At the moment I've got a working basic 
INDI-driver for Meade LX200/Autostar telescopes connected via a 
bluetooth-serial-converter.
At the moment I'm also working on a PL2303 usb-serial-converter driver for 
Android-devices with usb-hostmode, which is also basically working.

Only thing that has to build into skymap is an INDI-Client.

Original comment by atusche...@googlemail.com on 22 Apr 2012 at 1:47

[marcocipriani01]

Hi everyone, my friend @fra2002 and I are working on it. We're editing Sky Map's source code to drive a telescope, but it's an hard work (we are beginners). We are going to use an Arduino board. Unfortunately, commercial goTo telescopes (Celestron, SkyWatcher) use ASCOM, which is available only on Windows computers. So we're working on our protocol, but we're only at the beginning. If anyone wants to help us, you can find us here. This project is starting now, so there are only few changes to the app. We could be happy to help the Sky Map Team to add this feature.

[jaydeetay]

That's great news. Good luck! If at any point you get to a point where you want to merge back let us know.