something completely different

John D asked for thoughts, advice, and comments on the RASC Toronto Centre forum. He was having trouble getting a USB-ethernet adapter to work for remotely accessing his telescope gear, 60 metres away. 

I suggested trying another ethernet cable.

Gaëtan went a completely different route and recommended a computer at the telescope. Right, then remote into that...

Hold the phone. 

I flashed back to 1 February 2021 when I was trying to operate the mount and camera from indoors where at the end of all my experiments I too had considered a remote computer connection.

John Gomez was already up and running so I had a look in the Start menu.

TightVNC? Check.

Stellarium? Check!

Backyard EOS. No.

Tight set up as a server? No.

So I configured Tight and remoted in from John Max. That's was working fine.

Hopped into O'Telescope and downloaded the latest Backyard EOS, 3.2.2. Registered it. 

Camera was already at the workstation with tether. Connected to the camera and tested Frame & Focus. All's well.

So, without too much effort or bother, I had the necessary software installed on the laptop. With its three USB ports, ethernet port, and wifi, it can serve as the "local" computer, the computer at the telescope. It'll be interesting to try this.

And, serendipitously, it has my new Virtual Hand Controller on it!

In theory, this is ready to go.

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Ah. That went well because I had already installed the Canon software too!