[APBeta] Telescope control

[Bruce Pipes]

Paul,

I am not pushing you on scope control; I just want to give you  
information for when you get to it.

I have done some more testing, and I don't think it is switching  
applications that causes AP to hang. It hangs up a lot when it is the  
only application running. For example, it seems to freeze up if the  
scope is connected when it is opened (AP1.6.1 does this, too). When I  
managed to get it connected to my scope, I gave it a workout without  
opening another application and found that, after several high  
precision slews, it froze. I then restarted it, turned off high  
precision, and slewed to several objects. It worked for a while then  
froze.

Also, the Slew to Home (and disconnect) in the Telescope Control  
palette does not seem to work, at least not the way it does in  
AP1.6.1. In AP1.6.1 Slew to Home slews the scope to Dec = 0° pointing  
south (the correct Park position for a polar mounted scope). When I  
hit Slew to Home in APv2 the scope just kept slewing to the west in  
RA. Maybe it was headed for AltAz home, which is Alt = 0°, Az = 0°,  
but that would have been disastrous for my polar mounted scope because  
it would have pulled the cables from the ccd camera. Would it be  
possible to avoid this confusion by having a check box in the  
telescope resource for polar or altazimuth mount? Then, when you park  
a polar mounted scope, it would go to the proper park position and the  
altazimuth home position would not be possible and vice versa.

I should note, as I think I have before, that the scope control in  
AP1.6.1 works extremely well. I really use it a lot, and I do not  
recall it failing.

As always, I hope this is helpful.

Bruce