Ports and Connectors on CGE Pro Scopes
Click
here for a diagram
by Larry McNish depicting NexStar cable/port connections.
- RS-232 or USB Port - located on the bottom of the hand control.
Hand controls manufactured prior to 2014 are RS-232; those manufactured
starting in 2014 are USB. The RS-232 port is presented as an RJ-22
jack (looks like a small telephone jack). The USB port is a
mini-USB as found on devices like digital cameras, not the more common
micro-USB found on smartphones. The
primary usage of this port is for controlling your scope with the wide
variety of astronomy software available for PCs, Macs and PDAs. A
secondary usage is for updating the firmware in the hand control or
mount's motor control
- details are found here.
Details about the required connector cables are found in
this section of the website.
- HAND CONTROL Port - located on the electronics pier. The primary
usage of this port is for connecting the hand control, however, this port
is actually the same as the two AUX ports on the pier, and so, the hand
control can be connected to those ports as well. The connector is a
6 conductor RJ-12. The signaling is TTL and so a serial port on a PC
should not be connected to this port.
- AUX-1 and AUX-2 Ports- located on the electronics pier. These
ports are designated for "smart accessories", for example, the optional CN-16 GPS module - Celestron part
number 93967. Also as noted above, the hand control can be connected
here rather than in the fork arm. The connector is a 6 conductor
RJ-12. The signaling is TTL and so a serial port on a PC should
not be connected to this port.
- AUTO GUIDE Port - located on the electronics pier. This port is
designed for connecting a standard autoguider - generally based on a CCD
camera. The connector for this port is an RJ-12 and the pin
designations are found
here.
Also, you can build or buy a manual hand control that allows manual
guiding or fine movement control and connect it to this port - details are
found
here.
- PC Port - located on the electronics pier. This port can
be used with two software packages from Celestron. The first is
for upgrading the motor control firmware, though with hand control
version 4.13 or higher, motor control firmware can be updated via the
RS-232 port on the bottom of the hand control as well. The second is for a PC-based virtual hand control called
NexRemote - details are found
here. All other software on the market either communicates via
the RS-232 Port discussed above or communicates with NexRemote which in
turn communicates with the scope via this port. The connector for
this port is an 8 conductor RJ-45. The signaling is standard RS-232
levels. When using NexRemote with the PC port, you need a
"programming cable", not the standard RS-232 cable used to connect to the
port on the bottom of the hand control. Click
here for details on the cable used to connect this port to a PC.
- DEC Port - located on the electronics pier. Used
to connect the declination motor and encoder to the electronics pier.
- RA Port - located on the electronics pier. Used to connect the
right ascension motor and encoder to the electronics pier.
- DC IN Connector - located on the electronics pier. This is the connector for the power source
driving the scope - details on this connector are found
here.
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