The other night I set my LX90 & DSI up outside, ran the extended USB cables into my shed and connected them to my laptop. Then I ran into the house and setup remote desktop from my other computer for the first time ever, and proudly sat down in front of my wife and kids to show off my amazing armchair astronomy skills. This all worked fine to an extent, but it soon became apparent that communication between the two computers was too slow. Also Autostar Suite kept dropping the connection with the scope. The problems are not due to the length of the USB cables as I have a powered hub in the run, and all works fine from the laptop that they are connected to.

I'm not really up on networking, but can anyone explain how I can link the computers up over my wireless network so that I can be a lazy so and so, keep warm, and share the delights of the Universe with my family while they are trying to watch TV?

Its probably down to the speed of your wireless.
Wire less now comes in several 'Bands'

B - UPTO 10MBs
G - UPTO 54 MBs
G+ (or accelerated or other words meaning the same) - UPTO 108MBs
Pre N or N (or MIMO) - Up to 108 MBs.

You are best to use Pre N or G+ types as as well as speed these tend to have longer range.

Thats just my first guess - what network kit are you using ? and whats the distance between laptops ... Thick walls cut down speed and at range the connection can drop a lot too.

- I've just reread what you posted too - You are running remote desktop from the other machine ? This is a bit of a resource pig too - What are the specs of the machines you are running??

John

My wireless network is 54G. For some reason it's showing an excellent signal, but only 1.0Mbps. So that's probably the problem I guess. Although it may just be the speed of my broadband connection. Oh hang on, it's now showing 54Mbps!

I have the router in a window with line of site to my shed where the laptop is setup about 50' to 60' away. The laptop is XP Pro, 2Gb ram, Pentium M 760 3GHz - that's high spec so no probs there. My desktop PC is older, but still reasonable spec.

I was wondering if there is a better way to do this than the remote desktop feature. Ideally I would like to have both computers operational at the same time. With remote desktop, you have to log off the master computer before you can access it from the slave.

Its difficult .. remote desktop is never a good option ...

I believe there is some software out there that lets you operate the cam via the network - but i'll have to dig a bit ...

John

Hi Al.

Certainly many users get on well using Remote Desktop to control imaging and telescopes. So much so that they merely mention this in passing, without elaborating further:
eg.

http://arnholm.org/astro/index.htm
http://www.eaas.co.uk/gallery/astrophotography_resources.html

UltraVNc is another bit of software which is used by imagers successfully:
http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/

and I just found this:

http://www.teamviewer.com/

looks interesting

HTH,[/url]

_________________
Brian
52.3N 0.6W
Wellingborough UK.
254mm LX90 on Superwedge, WO ZS66SD, Helios 102mm f5 on EQ1, Hunter 11x80, Pentax 10x50
ASI120MC Toucam Pros 740k/840k/900nc mono, Pentax K110D
Ro-Ro roof shed

Thanks Brian. I will check those links out later. My main reason for wanting to do this is so that I can involve my children more on cold nights. Having nearly ripped the back off my scope last night while it slewed to an alignment star that was a tad too high, I thinks it's best to stay within running distance of the scope.

Hi Al

I was reading ur theads with interest. i also operate using a wireless LAN, don't have any real problems, though i will be tring to do some imaging tonight if this weather holds.

BTW u mention remote desktop access, is this resumably using the feature in XP?
Another piece of software you would try that is available free is VNC.

http://www.tightvnc.com/

With this u will need the ip address of the computer u wish to access but if you just want to program ur scope to do its job and want to check on the laptop then this is ideal
You can also control ur laptop with it

Al

_________________
Engineer, businessman, and Astronomer

Alastair,

Could I make a plea for less "texting"? I find it gets in the way of a good read.

Thanks,

_________________
200mm Newtonian, OMC140, ETX90, 15x70 Binoculars.

_________________
Engineer, businessman, and Astronomer

I do an almost identical thing. Using KStars, you can set up the telscope connection to run as a server, and then use another pc with kstars to do the control. Much less data going over the air than whole desktop images.

I note from the begining of the thread that you connected the telescope through a number of USB leads. You have to be very careful of the number of devices in series with USB. The maximum is 4 I beleive. This includes any active device so the hub counts as one, each 5m active lead also counts as one. You may also find there is another one built into the PC so it is easy to miss that.

It's a timing problem rather than an electrical signal strength problem so there is no easy way out.

If you exceed this you can get all sorts of strange results

John

_________________
Engineer @ Work - Astronomer @ Play

Impossible to say what might be wrong, just to maybe give a few pointers and possibilities.

There are two important aspects to Direct Sequence transmissions Signal Strength AND Signal Quality. Signal Quality is maybe the more important. You can run a DSSS link at virtually no signal strength provided you have adequate quality.

As you have probably noticed, as the signal strength/quality drops, so the rate also drops (normally down to 1 MB if necessary). Higher transmission speeds manage to go faster partly by reducing the chipping rate (and thus the redundancy when the signal is reconstructed by the receiver). Thus, when you are close without interference you can achieve good throughput. However, the rates can fall off quite quickly. With some equipment the area of coverage at 54 is quite small. In my house, 15 yards from my Access Point and through an internal wall and non-steel floor I can hardly manage 11.

It would be good to establish if your limit is Signal Strength or Signal Quality. Some equipment allows you to display all sorts of info about the signal, others tells you very little.

One thing I have found in practice (I used to do industrial 802.11? RF surveys) is that different manufacturers equipment can vary in its sensitivity to interference. Aironet for example is an excellent system and far more immune to interference than some other manufacturers. However, it is not particularly cheap and thus tends not to be sold in high street outlets.

What you can do to help will depend on what configuration options your equipment provides. Some provides loads of options, others are very limited.

If its signal strength then one option that may be a possibility is to put an Access Point as a wireless repeater between you and the shed (or somewhere that had a “better RF viewâ€