EQTOUR
is a lightweight, small footprint application for goto control
of
ASCOM compatible mounts. EQTOUR installs the following predefined
Tour Lists:
Messier
Caldwell
Bright
Doubles
Planetary
Nebula
Galaxies
Globular
Clusters
Named
Stars
Open
Clusters
Nebulas
Wolf
Raynet
In
addition to the predefined object lists EQTOUR also allows
uses to
create their own custom lists of objects and can also be used as a “bookmarking” facility
during an observing sessions alowing precise mount positions to be
revisited.
EQTOUR
Setup.
TOUR
LISTS
On start-up
EQTOUR automatically scans its install directory and
populates a drop down list of available Tours. Each Tour simply
consists of a list of sky objects. Several samples have been included
as part of the installation zip - these have not been fully verified as
to accuracy but should give a fair selection of Northern and Southern
hemisphere objects. The MyTour.lst file is provided as an empty tour
which effectively replaces the bookmark feature of earlier EQ_TOUR
versions ) See below for adding Object entries).
The current Tour can be
selected via a drop down list and on change
EQTOUR will generate a list of objects in the Tour definition that are
currently above the horizon. Note that object list can only be
populated once an ASCOM connection has been established (via the
Connect button) as the application must read Local Sidereal Time and
Observing Site coordinates from the scope driver in order to determine
which objects are visible.
The list of currently
visible is not dynamically updated but can be refreshed at any time by
hitting the "refresh" button.
The Horizon Altitude
limit can be adjusted via a slider control.
This feature allows the currently selected tour to be filtered by
altitude – very useful finding which objects are currently around
zenith (and therefore ripe for imaging) or for excluding objects in the
murk of the true horizon.
SLEWING
TO A TOUR OBJECT
Clicking on
a Tour Object Item will result in the "Object Position"
settings being changed to those associated with the object. Double
clicking will slew the scope to the object position. If an object has
passed below the horizon its coordinates will be displayed in RED and
slews will be disabled.
Right clicking on an object will expand/decrease the sizes of the list
window.
ADDING
AND REMOVING OBJECT ENTRIES
The current
Tour can be appended with a new entry corresponding to the
current scope position by simply pressing the "Add" button. The user is
prompted to add a description and once the return key is pressed the
list will be refreshed and the new entry should appear. If an empty
description is entered then the process is aborted.
Objects are removed from
the current list by first selecting them then pressing the "Delete"
button.
TOUR
FILES
Tour
definitions are stored in text files (*.lst) located in the
same directory as EQTOUR.exe These files can be freely edited (in
notepad for example) to add new entries. The format is as follows :–
Lines beginning
with a hash are treated as file comments
Object definition take the form of RA; DEC;
Name
RA and Dec are
decimal representations in Hours and Degrees respectively.
If you
don't require all of the sample Tour files either delete
them, rename them *.sav, or move them to another directory. Note that
the program needs lists at least one list file provide any useful
functionality!
VIDEO
DEMONSTRATION
DOWNLOAD
Source and
Executable only distributions of the latest stable release of EQTOUR
are available for download at:
The
EQMOD Sourceforge Project
