Re: Connecting SCT to desktop

From: Steve Maddison (steve_at_cosam.org)
Date: 10/05/04 

Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 10:32:20 +0200

Chris L Peterson wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 22:56:50 -0400, "Dennis Allen"
> <dennis@dennisallen.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi. Our club just finished a new observatory. It houses a
>> Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with a wedge and permanent mount. We
>> got the scope connected to a laptop using the serial port to run
>> the scope and the parallel port for the web cam.
>>
>> We want to hook the telescope to the desktop computer in a nearby
>> building. We have two 100' cat5 lines from the new observatory to
>> the building with the desktop. Question. What's the best way to
>> control the scope and web cam from the desktop?
>>
>> Could we hook the desktop to the laptop? The laptop's ports are
>> used up, but could we hook up one of the cat5 lines to the USB
>> port? Could we remote control the laptop from the desktop? Both
>> computers are XP and both have USB ports. Any advice would be
>> greatly appreciated...Dennis
>
>
> Is the laptop in the observatory running XP Pro? If so, all you need
> to do is set up a local area network and use Remote Desktop (client
> on the desktop machine, server on the laptop) to remote the laptop
> to the desktop. It's very simple, and works great. No need for USB
> anywhere in the solution, just Ethernet.
>
> It would also be simple to convert the mount's serial port to
> Ethernet and control it directly from the remote computer, bypassing
> the laptop completely. But the webcam is probably always going to
> require a local computer.
>

Yes, I'd definitely go the Ethernet way - much more reliable, especially
over any distance more than a couple of meters. Even if the machines
aren't running XP Pro, you can get the same effect using VNC - a free
version is available at http://www.realvnc.com/

Another advantage is that you can share files and directories between
the laptop and the desktop (or even other computers) which would make
copying images, etc. a breeze.

--Steve

Relevant Pages

  • Re: 1 way remote desktop
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