The ASCOM logo is your assurance that a
product meets a set of minimum
standards for quality, interoperability, and use with Windows scripting and
programming tools. If you see this logo on a product's package or web site, you can rest
easy that its behavior is consistent and it can be used in combination with other ASCOM-capable
products as part of your research and observing setups. For more information on the
ASCOM Initiative, visit the web site at http://ascom.dc3.com
As the number of astronomy programs have proliferated, so have the numbers of ways in which they interface to your telescope, or store their vast data on your hard drive. Through ASCOM and component software, you no longer have to suffer through data and interface duplication. NGCView has teamed up with Astronomer's Control Panel (ACP) to share a common telescope interface. A full featured ACP demo (included on the NGCView CD-ROM) is installed which will provide a feature rich telescope interface including voice control. After the demo period expires, it downgrades to a minimum configuration which still allows NGCView to control your LX200 telescope.
Just as NGCView leverages ACP's telescope control interface, ACP can use NGCView's services to look up object data or tell you about the objects in your field of view. Using ASCOM, ACP can launch the AstroDataManager ASCOM component that ships with NGCView. This component will locate the NGCView's data files and provide access to them through several interfaces, providing the user the ability to determine which objects are currently in the eyepiece field of view. Other interfaces allow you to retrieve information on each object or look up any object by name.
This has a minimum set of interfaces needed to support ACP and simple data retrieval applications. Functions include the ability to get all objects in the field of view, as well as retrieve objects by name. Each astronomical object supports a list of properties and methods that can be used to retrieve parameters, determine chart location, etc.
Version 2 has an advanced object model and has switched to a Local Server. Your application can choose to attach, detach and reattach to the server without having to go through the load and initializing process each time. A new enumerator has been added to speed up retrieval of extremely large data sets and you now have full access to the filtering engine.
Send your email comments to ngcview@rainman-soft.com.