Davoud:
If so, you may be able to tell me why TheSkyX Pro (latest daily build
running on the latest El Capitan) reports that the OTA is on the east
side of the mount immediately after resuming from Park 1, when the OTA
is most definitely on the west side of the mount. I don't know if it's
the mount reporting its position improperly or the TheSkyX being
confused. I suspect the latter, as GOTO works from the A-P
keypad--indicating that the A-P knows where it is. But that doesn't
necessarily mean that it is properly reporting what it knows to
TheSkyX.

Chris L Peterson:
I'm sure he knows that. It's a regular problem with GEMs that the
mount and the control software disagree about whether the scope is on
the east or west side of the pier. It turns out to be a bit tricky in
many cases to figure that out from the information that the mount
provides. This generates quite a few discussions on software
development sites, with various mounts as well as various software.

Indeed. You know me, OS agnostic, so I booted Win 7 Pro and connected
to the mount with TheSkyX Pro for Windows (Bisque sells a
multi-platform, multi computer license).

The result was the same: TheSkyX Pro for Windows reports the OTA is on
the east side of the pier. I can't test TheSkyX GOTOs until the real
sky clears, probably just before Judgement Day.

As for discussions on software development sites, to the limited extent
that I am qualified to comprehend this material, I get the impression
that the problem is in what the mount reports, not in TheSkyX. Daniel
Bisque wrote "'TheSkyX is asking the AP mount "what side of the pier is
the OTA on?' (via the S# command) and the mount is responding: 'The
OTA is on the East side' (East#)."
http://www.bisque.com/sc/forums/t/10841.aspx

Now, with the Mac and Windows code for TheSkyX being very nearly
identical, and developed in parallel, it /could/ happen that the same
bug appears in both versions. But I don't think so. I think Daniel is
right‹the A-P mount is sending bad data.

Possible fix: I have on order the new A-P GTOCP4 Control Box, scheduled
for May delivery, and I hope it has a fix this problem. With the
GTOCP4, A-P has simultaneously discovered WiFi (public in 1997),
Ethernet (PARC, 1974), and USB (1998, first used on the iMac, and
subject of much derision, because "the RS-232 serial port (1962) will
never be replaced."

*****

As for Snell, who has been in my kill-file since The Singularity, the
man is brilliant. He wrote "Your mount is a german [sic] equatorial.
There are two ways to orient the mount to make the scope point at a
given location in the sky" Firstly, he enlightened me. I had thought
that a GEM was the same as a Dob push-to. Secondly, his epiphany that
"there are two ways to orient the mount" implies that the Earth has an
an axis of rotation and four cardinal directions, and if that is true,
then both Earth and sky can have coordinate systems that allow
locations to be specified unambiguously with just two simple sets of
numbers; furthermore that a GEM in fact has /two/ rotation axes. The
man is a /genio/ /assoluto/ !

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm