PalmDSC: A Digital Setting Circle program for PalmOS Doug Braun Web Site: http://palmdsc.dougbraun.com Version 1.2 September 22, 2006 PalmDSC is a digital setting circle program for the Palm Pilot. It interfaces with a telescope's DSC encoder system via the Palm Pilot's serial port. I have tried to make PalmDSC robust and easy to use under real-life conditions (i.e. outside in the dark). For example, normal operation does not require the use of the Palm's stylus. Here are some of PalmDSC's features: 1: It works with alt-az, equatorial, and German Equatorial scopes and equatorial tables. 2: It interfaces with Dave Ek or MG IV encoders via the Palm's serial port. 3: It has a catalog of 40 or so alignment stars. You can also align on the brighter planets. 4: It has catalogs of: All planets All Messier and Caldwell objects All NGC and many IC objects Well-known double stars Objects visible under light-polluted skies 5: User-defined object lists can be stored and used. 6: It can be operated with the four application buttons and the scroll buttons instead of the stylus. No dropping the stylus in the dark! 7: You can switch applications, turn the Palm off and on again, disconnect the serial cable, etc. without losing the alignment. 8: The Object Sort feature tells you which objects are closest to the scope's current position. 9: All source code and catalog data is freely available. PalmDSC was built with the freely-available GCC and PrcTools. Recent Changes ============== Version 1.2: 9/22/06 There is a red-screen option for color Palms. The System menu has a new "Fake Alignment" command. This will let you play with your PalmDSC/encoder system in the daytime. In the NGC/IC screen, the up and down hardware buttons now scroll through the objects. On units such as the Palm T3 and Garmin iQue, you can resize the screen and the screens and forms will properly adjust. PalmDSC now works with Palm T3 and T5 handhelds. Support added for PalmOS 3.1. Works with Palm IIIs now! More detailed error messages are given when there is a problem communicating with the encoders. The program and the NGC database can now be run from a memory card. PalmDSC now has GEM (German Equatorial Mount) support. You can now create multiple large user object catalogs, stored as Palm MemoPad entries. Lots small bugs were fixed, and several object database errors were corrected. Version 1.1: 8/21/04 Some minor tweaks to reduce the possibility of numeric problems (e.g. divide-by-zero) in unusual situations. Some more Southern-hemisphere alignment stars were added. Version 0.4: 6/1/04 A new "Nearby NGC/IC Objects" screen was added. This screen displays all the NGC/IC objects within a few degrees of the scope's current position. A new "User Object" screen was added. You can save up to nine object coordinates and descriptions, and quickly select them as targets. The data can be manually entered, or copied from any of the objects in PalmDSC's database. The user object data is stored when PalmDSC is exited. This new screen replaces the old "Target" screen. PalmDSC now works properly with Dave Ek's latest version 2.0 encoder firmware. Support was added for the Handspring Visor. (But note that the Visor's serial port uses non-standard voltage levels, and your encoder interface circuit would probably have to be modified to work with the Visor.) Support was added for PalmOS 5, so late-model PDAs like the Palm Tungsten series should work. Version 0.3: 1/13/04 The keypress-handling code was rewritten. Now the 4 hard keys will work properly with the pop-up alert forms for encoder resetting and initializing. A new "select" feature was added to the NGC screen. This is a pop-up form that allows you to select a particular NGC/IC object without having to use the stylus. Version 0.2: 1/8/04 The NGC/IC object database was redesigned. Now it installs many times faster. An installation on my Palm M100 over a serial port now takes about 40 seconds. (It previously took almost 30 minutes!) Lookups in the NGC/IC database are also faster. System Requirements =================== I assume that you know what a DSC (digital setting circle) system is, and that you have a suitable Palm Pilot device, and know how to install software on it. Obviously you need a telescope that has DSC hardware, with an encoder interface that has a serial port. I have developed PalmDSC with a Dave Ek encoder interface on my 10" Dobsonian telescope. You will also need a suitable cable to connect your DSC interface to your Palm's serial port. Here are some Web links for some DSC systems: Dave Ek's DSC interface: http://home.earthlink.net/~david.ek/digicircles Ouranos DSC interface: http://pages.globetrotter.net/pdufour I have personally tested PalmDSC on a Palm M100 and a M105, a Palm V, and a Garmin iQue 3600. It should run on pretty much any Palm with at least 1 Meg of memory, serial port, and PalmOS version 3.0 or later. Users have reported success running it on the Palm Tungsten T2, the Visor Handspring, and a Sony Clie. PalmDSC does not require any color graphics features, so it should work on both B/W and color Palms. The main program (with all databases except NGC/IC) is about 84 Kbytes. The NGC/IC database is 266 Kbytes. MathLib (56 Kbytes) is also needed to run PalmDSC. Installing PalmDSC ================== From your Palm Desktop, install these files: palmdsc.prc The main program palmdsc_ngc.pdb The NGC/IC database MathLib.prc MathLib (You may already have this installed from other programs). Garmin iQUE 3600 owners should note that MathLib is already built into the iQUE's operating system, and does not need to be installed.