Telescope/Mount Drivers
Update Drivers With Windows Update. By far, the simplest way to update your drivers is through. The free Xerox Global Print Driver manages Xerox and non-Xerox printers on your network with a single, easy-to-use interface. It dramatically simplifies enterprise printer management for IT managers, making it easy to add and update printers without changing drivers. It's really simple once you find the right download. For dt-boot, the PHY drivers should also register.PHY provider. with the framework. PHY drivers should create the PHY by passing id and ops like init, exit, poweron. This topics in this section describe the class drivers, generic client driver, and the parent composite driver that are provided by Microsoft. Microsoft-provided USB drivers for controllers and hubs Microsoft provides these set of drivers: For USB host controllers and hubs.
ACL Telescope Controllers (6.0.1)
Installs a driver for telescope control systems that speak the Merlin Controls Astronomy Command Language. Please note that there is a specific driver for the COMSOFT PC-TCS control system below. Version 6.0.1 corrects a COM port setup bug, and has sources for building under Platform 6.Advanced LX-200 Driver (Generic, not for Meade scopes)
Installs a driver that uses a subset of the LX-200 protocol. Use this driver with mounts that purport to use the LX-200 protocol like FS2, Picastro etc...Ascom 2X Mount Adaptor (Paramount, etc., 6.1) for TheSky X and TheSky 5/6 (external link)
This is supplied by Software Bisque and is available from the Downloads section of the Software Bisque site, the file is called Ascom 2X Mount Adaptor Setup.exe
Installs a driver that connects to Software Bisque's TheSky X/6/5 Astronomy Software and makes it look like a standard ASCOM telescope. This allows ASCOM-based astronomy software to use TheSky (including TPOINT and ProTrack) as a smart telescope controller. For more information see Working with TheSky (section 1). It is required for the Paramount mounts, and may be used with TheSky controlling any other of its supported telescope types, or via its built-in outbound ASCOM support, and then using ASCOM telescope drivers. This driver provides Telescope V3 support, 100% conformance, and compatibility with TheSky X (10.2.0 or later). It should also work with TheSky6 and TheSky5 but not all functionality will be present.
Astro-Physics GTO - Factory Supplied Driver and Software
This is the installer for the Astro-Physics factory-supported driver for all Astro-Physics telescope models. Please go to the Astro-Physics Driver web page for their driver and associated software.AstroShop Omegon EQ500X Equatorial Mounts
This is the installer for the Omegon Mount EQ-500X sold by Astroshop.eu. Omegon mounts are a collection of Alt-Az and Equatorial mounts for visual observation and astrophotography. The Conformance report is part of the release. The mounts and driver pass with two errors related to coordinates granularity (1 arcsec minimum).
Celestron Unified (6.1.7350, Feb 2020) Telescope & Focuser
Installs a driver for all computerized Celestron telescopes, now including the new Celestron Focuser. NOTE: Focuser moves are prevented if the focuser is not calibrated. Calibrate the Focuser before anything else! Also this driver does its best to compensate for the extra time needed for final approach in slews but which is not reported via the Celestron controller. This driver has passed the Conformance Checker tests. See the help file and release notes(!), installed as part of the driver, for a full description.
This driver does NOT support Synta mounts. Use the Sky-Watcher drivers listed below.
Digital Setting Circles (David Ek, external link)
This ASCOM driver allows the use of a variety of commercial and homebrew passive encoder-based digital setting circles systems with any Windows software that supports the ASCOM standard. This driver works with either alt-az mounts (like a dobsonian) or equatorial mounts. Equatorial mounts do not need to be accurately polar-aligned (although an accurate polar alignment will likely lead to a more satisfying observing experience). The button leads to David's web site for this driver as well as other info on DSCs.Explore Scientific PMC-Eight Mount Controller Driver
This is the link for the PMC-Eight Mount Controller to download the PMC-Eight Software Development Kit. This kit includes the ASCOM-Standards driver and other information needed to develop applications for the controller. This version of the driver has passed the Conformance Checker (report included in SDK). Please contact Explore Scientific for more information.EQMOD Project (external link)
With the EQMOD ASCOM driver, the user will be able to control the Modded EQ mount using any ASCOM based astronomy software at 0.144 arcsecond resolution. This is an ongoing project, so be sure to check the site for updates.Gemini Telescope .NET (1.0.75, April 2020)
Installs a driver for mounts controlled by René Görlich's Gemini Astronomical Telescope Positioning System. This latest version (2020) addresses compatibility with ASCOM Alpaca and also makes some needed changes for soon to be released firmware (stay tuned for this upcoming firmware release). Current firmware required!Generic LX-200 (5.0.1)
Installs a driver that uses a small subset of the LX-200 protocol. Features are limited, and end-of-slew detection may be unreliable (requires adjustment of encoder resolution). Use this driver with mounts that purport to use the LX-200 protocol. Be prepared for limitations and problems. Simple applications (such as planetarium slewing) are more likely to work than demanding automation applications.GS Server (July 2020) for Sky-Watcher and Orion Mounts
This is a server with its own graphical interface that provides an ASCOM Telescope interface as well as a Synta Protocol for Sky-Watcher and Orion mounts: EQ8, EQ8-R, HDX110, AZ-EQ5GT, Sirius Pro AZ/EQ-G, AZ-EQ6GT, Orion Atlas Pro AZ/EQ-G, EQ6-R PRO, NEQ6, HEQ5, EQ5, EQ4, AzGTi.iOptron CEM60 and iEQ45 Pro
Installs a driver for the iOptron CEM60 and iEQ45 Pro mounts. This driver has been supplied by the manufacturer and has passed all conformance tests (report here).LittleFoot Controller (1.0.0)
Driver for the LittleFoot Controller Project, specifically the LittleFoot Classic. For more info see Astronomie & Elektronik (a German/English forum).Meade Autostar/Audiostar Project (October 2019)
Link to a new 'Meade Generic' driver for the Meade Autostar/Audiostar controlled Meade telescopes. This driver project is listed in hopes that the author can get feedback and work out any remaining issues. This driver has been created after discovering that the 'Meade LX200 Classic and Autostar #494, #495, and #497 (combined telescope/focuser, 5.0.4)' driver listed below does not implement enough features to allow the telescope to be properly operated remotely.The driver can be installed alongside any other driver (including the 'universal' one listed below). See the driver project website for details. Please provide feedback to the developer or via the ASCOM Talk User's List.Meade Universal Driver Project (June 2014)
Meade LX200 Classic and Autostar #494, #495, and #497 (combined telescope/focuser, 5.0.4, May 2013)
Installs a driver for the original Meade LX200 ('classic') telescope mounts (including the 16'), as well as Meade telescopes that use the Autostar I (#494, #495 and #497) controllers, such as the ETX and DS series. This driver provides both telescope and focuser interfaces each of which may be used by separate programs. Do not use this with the LX200GPS, LX200R or the RCX400. V5.0.4 corrects installer and driver version mismatches only, no logic in the driver has changed since 2008.Meade LX200GPS and LX200R (combined telescope/focuser, 5.0.0, Jan 2008)
Installs a driver for the Meade LX200GPS and LX200R telescope mounts. This driver provides both telescope and focuser interfaces each of which may be used by separate programs. Do not use this with the LX200 Classic or the Autostar I (#495/#497) controllers. It has been reported that this driver also works with the RCX400 except it doesn't allow access to its unique features.Meade MaxMount (1.0.0, March 2012)
Installs a driver for the Meade MaxMount and MAX 20' ACF telescope mount.PC-TCS (combined telescope/focuser/dome 5.0.1)
Installs a driver for the COMSOFT PC-TCS telescope control systems. This driver provides combined telescope, focuser, and dome interfaces each of which may be used by separate programs.ServoCAT (5.2.1, external link)
Driver for the StellarCAT ServoCAT telescope control system. Latest firmware is recommended but will run with old firmware (backwards compatible) with reduced features. The author provides a self-contained installer.Sky Commander (2.1.0, external link)
Driver for the Sky Commander digital setting circle (DSC) device. The author provides a self-contained installer.Generic Audio Driver Update
Sky-Watcher SynScan Physical Hand Controller and SynScan App (separate drivers)
These drivers is for all mounts that use the Synta Sky-Watcher SynScan controller, including those provided by Orion etc. It should work with both AltAz and GEM mounts. The SynScan Hand Controller V3/V4 version must be 3.38 or 4.38 or later to get full functionality but limited functionality should be available for all HC versions. In addition a separate driver is available for the SynScan App, a virtual version of the Sky-Watcher SynScan hand controller.Takahashi Temma (5.0.26, external link)
Driver for the Takahashi Temma mounts. This is a full-featured driver that provides not only ASCOM standard driver functions, but also user access to many of the Temma's special features.Vixen SkySensor 2000 (6.1.7)
Installs a driver for the Vixen SkySensor 2000 telescope control system. This version corrects the installer so it can be installed on Platform 5 and 6 (and later). The driver has also passed the Conformance Checker tests (see this report). NOTE: This driver provides limited support for the IDEA GoToStar system.Vixen Sphinx (external link)
Driver for the Vixen Sphinx mounts.Introduction
Latest version : 1.4.8 LTS on nuget.org
How to use : Example project in this blog post
Performance is outstanding : 11ms to get a response from a calculation view on 8 tables !
After I installed by home server with SAP HANA 2.0 SPS04, I tried lots of development ideas easily outside office environment and without corporate limitations.(how-to details here)
Every time when I tried to develop something I had to overcome some limitations :
- Spring Framework with JpaRepository consume an significant RAM memory footprint per instance (around 500 MB / instance as HANA Cokpit reports). It’s easy but for large scale applications may be expensive to run in any cloud provider.
- Node.JS backend apps have to be created with XSJS compatibility option to have an all-purpose API to expose CRUD operations and All the code writen in javascript is visible to customers of the published app. Also Javascript Promises and Callback are not that easy to be learned and require a lot of code writing effort.
I’m a very big fan of C# .NET and I noticed that SAP has released an SAP HANA driver with Express edition (clients_windows.zip using the provided SAP HANA Express downloader after registering) for dotnetcore so I tried to use it.
For sure the best lifecycle tool to design and deploy the database container is HANA Core Data Services (CDS) but for handling CRUD operations in C# I could not find any suitable tool that is :
- simple to use (see example below)
- compatible with LINQ
- light weight memory footprint (running API uses 40-50 MB / instance)
- few external dependencies other that SAP HANA driver for dotnetcore (only NewtonSoft.Json is now referenced, but this reference is common in API development)
- generic use regarding of data model that is used (db container lifecycle may be maintained with WebIDE & HANA CDS for best performance)
- sql injection prevention on string properties (by default disabled but)
- fast execution & no performance overhead that is not needed (eg : ORM features that are not used in cloud & enterprise services)
- 100% specific HANA sql scripts for perfect compatibility (design for SAP HANA only !)
- Cloud Foundry read of db connection data from VCAP_SERVICES
- compatible with Inversion Of Control (IoC) principles
- custom Query function to use Linq predicates that are transformed to SQL WHERE
- custom salt Encode/Decode for sensitive data object properties (for GDPR compliance)
So I decided to develop & release the first (from my knowledge) Generic Repository NuGet package for SAP HANA dotnetcore use.
Pre-requirements
For hands on exercise you’ll need access to an SAP HANA 2.0 instance (Express version is free for use) and .NET Core 2.1 x64 driver installed besides Visual Studio or Visual Code
You may download them :
Features
Generic use and basics :
Microsoft Generic Sound Driver
- mapped columns to properties (Auto by name or with attribute)
- database connection provider to open the connection based on specific SAP HANA specifics
- HanaConnectionInfo class that structures all the hana container informations to handle tables in generic way
- most of the standard column data types are supported (short, int, bool , Guid, string, decimal)
- Create, Get, Update, Count, Delete, NextId, LastId operations provided
- easy model class definitions and attributes to decorate class & properties
- Not mapped properties for light weight
- Query by LINQ predicate & GetPropertyUniqueValues for dropdown datasource
Code Samples
Install NuGet package
data.hdbcds for a simple model
Model class
Repository use
Conclusions
It is really easy to use .NET and C# when you have good tools.
The memory footprint is bigger than XSODATA Node.JS implementation (around 30MB / instance) and 8x times lower than the Java Cloud SDK uses (500 MB / instance) and it’s measured at (50-60 MB / API instance)
You can use check more info about the package on NuGet