Ascom Poth Driver
POTH - Plain Old Telescope Handset. POTH is an There is a detailed help file for POTH, accessible from the Start menu, ASCOM useful for ill-behaved driver.
Frequently Asked Questions The ASCOM Platform installer is How can I get support for my ASCOM driver. The ASCOM Platform comes with two hubs, POTH and ASCOM.
10 Astro-Physics V2 ASCOM Driver v5.05.00 2012,Astro-Physics, Inc. If you haven t already configured the ASCOM driver from an earlier version of the V2 driver.
ASCOM Hubs. ASCOM Hubs allow you MaxIm DL is configured to connect to a telescope driver that isn t actually a telescope. It s the POTH Hub application that is.
POTH is an incredibly useful tool for both testing and routine observing. It started out as a plain old telescope handset hence the acronym, but it has grown a lot since then. We can thank Jon Brewster for POTH. Let s look at a block diagram of a typical usage:
MaxIm DL s telescope controls are fed into POTH, which calculates the proper dome slit azimuth for the mount geometry. POTH passes commands from connected programs through to the drivers, allowing the programs to share the devices. Both MaxIm DL and Cartes du Ciel are controlling the telescdope and reading back its coordinates, etc. A slew from either will cause the dome to move to the proper new slit azimuth. Also, POTH will not declare either the telescope or the dome to be finished moving until both have stopped moving. Thus, MaxIm s imaging sequencer will not start an exposure until everything is settled. In the diagram, FocusMax could be attached to the focuser and telescope for AcquireStar as well.
POTH has many useful features such as traffic logging and its own set of handset controls for the telescope, dome, and focuser. There is a detailed help file for POTH, accessible from the Start menu, ASCOM Platform, Scope/Dome hubs. It also has a quiet mode which minimizes traffic to and from the driver, useful for ill-behaved driver/controller combinations that might have timing issues. In quiet mode, POTH will not respond to changes made using the telescope s hardware handbox.
The ASCOM driver for ServoCAT, developed by Peter Eschman. This is ServoCAT ReadMe.htm, June 2015 for ASCOM ServoCAT v5.2.1 Driver, June 2015. What are.
ASCOM driver. Click here to download the ASCOM driver 29kb This is a telescope driver for SkyMap which allows connection to any telescope supported by the ASCOM.
The ASCOM Platform installer is asking for the Microsoft. NET Framework. There are so many versions out there. Is 4.x better than 3.x. What should I do.
There has been confusion about getting the Microsoft. NET Framework installed. It is a pre-requisite to the ASCOM Platform. Please read the note for Windows 7 or Windows XP as it applies to you.
The ASCOM Diagnostics program gives me the error Incompatible Driver xxxxx. This 32 bit only driver won t work in a 64 bit
application even though it is correctly registered as a 32bit COM
driver. Please contact the driver author and request an updated driver. Does this mean that the application I want to use will not work with
This will almost certainly not matter. Most astronomy applications are
at present Jan 2013 compiled as 32 bits and will work with 32 bit only
drivers, even on 64 bit versions of Windows. You are seeing this because the ASCOM diagnostics program is doing a
full check and is reporting this to help driver developers know of this
potential problem. If you see the same error when you try to choose the
driver in the Application then this is a problem because the application
is running as 64 bits and a 32 bit application will not work.
Note: This is not under the control of the ASCOM Platform. We do not
have the ability to compensate for this fundamental differences between
The driver installer shows the message The ASCOM Platform 5 is required for this driver
This is resolved for most drivers, see Platform 5.5 only installers
for information on how to fix this for your driver.
Why Can t You Just Add Logic to Your Program to Compensate For My Device s Problem.
See the Correcting for Problems also in the menu on the left.
Where can I learn about The ASCOM Initiative and its technology.
How can I get support for my ASCOM driver.
See the Support page for details.
How can I use TheSky in the ASCOM Environment.
See Working With TheSky also in the menu on the left.
Why don t my scripts work on a 64-bit system.
Most ASCOM drivers and the ASCOM support components are 32-bit. If you run your script by double-clicking it or using cscript on the command line, it uses the 64-bit script engine. The 64-bit script engine cannot use 32-bit components. On a 64-bit system, you must use the 32-bit script engine for ASCOM scripts. The easiest way is to use a command shell like this:
c: whatever windir SYSWOW64 cscript.exe myscript.vbs or myscript.js for JScript
A hub is a program that allows multiple ASCOM astronomy programs to share a device. It looks like a driver, but it can allow more than one program to connect to it, and it in turn connects to the driver for the real device. Hubs can exist for any type of device. The diagram below shows a telescope hub only as an example.
The ASCOM Platform comes with two hubs, POTH and ASCOM Dome Control. In addition, the FocusMax program can act as both a focuser and a telescope hub.
What is POTH. What Can I Use it For.
See Using POTH also in the menu on the left.
How do I enable and disable serial tracing.
Most drivers use the ASCOM Helper component to do serial port I/O. For those drivers that do, you can capture a trace of the serial traffic to and from the device by using serial tracing. Beginning with ASCOM Platform 5.5, the Chooser has a Trace menu. Use this to set the location of the serial trace log and to turn tracing on and off.
