This is the home of the ASCOM Initiative, a loosely-knit group of astronomy software developers and astronomy device manufacturers devoted to vendor-independent plug-and-play control. ASCOM is a many-to-many and language-independent architecture, supported by most astronomy devices which connect to Windows computers. The diagram below shows how ASCOM differs from traditional astronomy instrument control architectures.
I would like to say a huge Thank You to the ASCOM team for making it so easy for manufacturers to support their hardware with ASCOM compliant drivers. The documentation, templates, and timely and accurate answers to questions on this forum have made my latest driver development an enjoyable and relatively simple process -
Doug Anderson, Shoestring Astronomy
I've just been able to fix a rather obscure problem with my ASCOM drivers thanks to the wealth of information available, including the great Visual Studiotemplates. Once again, I should say, the samples etc. have also been of great help in the past. As a manufacturer/developer, and of course as an astronomer, I find ASCOM to be one of the best things to have happened to the community, and it's getting better with every new version. So just wanted to say - Thank you guys!
Jaime Alemany - Lunático Astronomía S. L.
For more information on the ASCOM Initiative, see the About ASCOM section.
Required for all drivers (see notes for Windows 7 and Windows XP!). This will install the Platform on a new PC, and it will also upgrade earlier installations of Platform versions 4, 5, and 6.
Download and install the driver(s) for your astronomy instruments and devices. You'll also find plug-ins for TheSky and other useful tools and components here for download.
