Orchestrate & Automapping

Automapping the Telescope

With TheSky, TPoint and your CCD camera you can use a simple Orchestrate script to automatically map the telescope. Before you can do this you need to A) Create a set of Alt/Az mapping points, B) set the Telescope | Server Settings in TheSky/CCDSoft to allow for remote connections/mapping. See below.

TheSky Server Settings

Allow for remote mapping with Orchestrate

&

CCDSoft's Server Settings

Allow for remote mapping with Orchestrate

If you do not allow for the auto-mapping capability in both CCDSoft and TheSky the auto-mapping Orchestrate script will fail.

 

How to create the mapping Alt/Az data file TheSky6 - The Data Wizard

Steps:

1)  Before using the script you must first initialize the telescope and focus the CCD camera. The best way to Sync the telescope is by using our Image Link and Sync. This allows you to quickly and easily synchronize the telescope at the arcsecond level without having to take multiple exposures and/or move the telescope.

 

2) Using the Auto-Map VB Script you have created in TheSky - Edit-Paste the script directly into Orchestrate for execution. After connecting to TheSky/Telescope and CCD camera you are ready to execute the mapping script. From the Orchestrate menu use Connections. See Below.

Connect to TheSky/Telescope and Camera

After connecting choose File | New

3)  Edit | Paste the Script created by TheSky into the blank spread sheet in Orchestrate. To Run the script choose Macro | Run. See example below,

Mapping Script created by TheSky now ready to run

Use Macro | Run to execute

How do I create the Alt/Az mapping points??

4)  Run the script. The telescope will slew to the Alt/Az coordinates, take the image,  Image Link the image and move on.

 

Important Note:If an Image Link fails or the telescope slews out of bounds or you attempt to image an object below the horizon you will get an error that will cause the script to halt. This is the one drawback to using Orchestrate scripts for auto-mapping. You will have to move to the next line manually and continue the script from there. If you do not baby-sit the script it will most likely not run through completion!  For more advanced scripting using Visual Basic/Java compatible scripts in an open-ended programming environment please see our Advanced Automap Scripting features distributed with Orchestrate

Alternative easy to use GUI version of the script

Back to Orchestrate