pyskyx

python module to help interfacing with SoftwareBisque's TheSkyX

This module utilises the TCP server built into TheSkyX which can be sent java scripts.

This is a work in progress. Assume all functions/classes/interfaces as very unstable and liable to change on a whim for now!

Status

Done (for now see whats implemented in the code):

TCP connection and sending of arbitrary commands.
Find command
TheSkyXAction & basic sky6ObjectInformation

Untested:

closed loop slew
connect/disconnect scope
connect/disconnect camera

TODO:

All telescope slewing
All camera etc. settings
All image capture

Usage

>>> import skyx
>>> sx = skyx.SkyXConnection("192.168.192.44")
>>> sx.find("Saturn")
True
>>> sx.find("Vulcan")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "skyx.py", line 74, in find
    raise SkyxObjectNotFoundError(target)
skyx.SkyxObjectNotFoundError: 'Vulcan'
>>> objinfo = sx.sky6ObjectInformation()
>>> objinfo.sky6ObjectInformation("Saturn")
{'sk6ObjInfoProp_DEC_2000': '-17.777434376248852', 
 'sk6ObjInfoProp_AZM': '192.3302592258289', 
 'sk6ObjInfoProp_RA_RATE_ASPERSEC': '-0.0009208590737941336', 
 'sk6ObjInfoProp_ALT': '18.11230835059689', 
 'sk6ObjInfoProp_DEC_RATE_ASPERSEC': '0.000022557601141670602', 
 'sk6ObjInfoProp_RA_2000': '15.760512194513813'}
>>>

find() can also take decimal RA & Dec (J2000) as arguments, so only the target location needs to be known, it does not need to be in the skyx database. Though ObjectInformation will be sparse for such targets.

e.g. sx.find("7,3")

Closed loop slew and sync example

obj = skyx.sky6ObjectInformation()
scope = skyx.sky6RASCOMTele()

con.find("HIP 100044")
target_pos = obj.currentTargetRaDec(j="now")
con.closedloopslew()
scope.sync(target_pos)

Running tests

The tests are written for py.test. An optional --host argument can be supplied to py.test to specify where TheSkyX is running. e.g.
py.test -v --host=192.168.192.44

References

http://www.bisque.com/scripttheskyx/ Official Scripting documentation for TheSkyX

zking1219 / pyskyx