So press the Unpark button before we can continue. In this position you won’t be able to move the mount using the controls. You’ll see that our mount starts off in the “ Parked” position.This then loads up that familiar EQMOD control dialog box and change the status from red to green in the telescope control box in CDC: We simply now press the Connect button.

Click OK to confirm that’s the correct profile to return back to the previous window.

You will see the profile name that we created when previously setting up ASCOM. This will load up the following dialog box.

To tell ASCOM which configuration of EQMOD we’re using, we select the Select button.

Now to connect CDC to our ASCOM mount go to the Telescope menu again, this time select Connect telescope… This loads up the following screen

Click OK to return back to the Sky Chart view.

To configure CDC to use our ASCOM controlled mount, go to the Telescope menu and select Settings….

Cartes du Ciel Sky Charts downloaded and installed.

A correctly configured ASCOM Platform and configured mount with EQMod.

Laptop or PC (whilst CDC works with Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD, we are assuming just Windows here to take advantage of ASCOM).

When teamed up with an ASCOM controlled mount, you will be able to click on objects from stars, to planets, to deep sky objects (DSOs) such as galaxies and nebula, and get more information on them and allow your mount to then move in that direction to centre on that object.

Enter stage left, Cartes du Ciel / Sky Charts.Ĭartes du Ciel (or CDC, as it’s also known amongst friends) is a gem of a program that helps you navigate the night sky. Stellarium is resigned to my phone these days. I struggled with its quirky interface, and didn’t quite get to grips with the requirements to connect it to my mount and scope. For a long time I was a user of Stellarium – however, I wouldn’t say I was using it to its full potential.

Control telescope stellarium