Equipment

I've been gravitating towards KStars as an open-source & "pretty" planetarium program. It was originally written for the K Desktop Environment and (in general) for use on Linux systems. Although KStars can be installed through MacPorts (as a component of the "kdeedu4" port), this version has its INDI client capabilities disabled on non-Linux systems. I was able to re-enable INDI support by taking the following steps:

1. install the indi port (see prior post) before attempting to install the kdeedu4 port and be sure that the indi port is installed & working okay to your satisfaction
   
   
2. type "sudo port -v install kdeedu4". Many dependencies may need to build before MacPorts attempts to build the kdeedu4 package. If this is the case, allow these other ports to build uninterrupted. When kdeedu4 begins to build, the first step will be to download and unzip the source code. Once this is complete, use "control-c" to halt the install (this is a very crude way to handle the problem, but it should work). At the command line, navigate to /opt/local/var/macports/build (replace /opt/local with your MacPorts root directory if it is installed in a non-standard location). You should be able to see some long folder-name that contains the kdeedu4 source code. Navigate inside this folder, then to work and then inside a folder that will be called something like kdeedu-4.3.3 (the version number will change as time goes by). Finally, navigate inside the folder marked kstars. Open the file CMakeLists.txt as root with a command like sudo pico -w CMakeLists.txt. The offending code is:
   
# INDI is a Linux-specific addon
IF(${CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME} STREQUAL "Linux")
macro_optional_find_package(INDI)
macro_bool_to_01(INDI_FOUND HAVE_INDI_H)
macro_log_feature(INDI_FOUND "libindi" "A framework for controlling astronomical devices such as telescopes, CCDs, filter wheels..etc." "http://indi.sf.net" FALSE "0.6" "Gives KStars support for controlling astronomical devices.")
ENDIF(${CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME} STREQUAL "Linux")

   Comment out the lines IF(${CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME} STREQUAL "Linux") and ENDIF(${CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME} STREQUAL "Linux") by adding a # sign in front of them. Save the file, exit, and re-start the configuration process by typing sudo port -v install kdeedu4 again. The kdeedu4 port should continue to configure, build and install without trouble.
   
   
3. Once installed, you will need to create two soft links or kstars will not run properly. On my system, these links were the following (you may need to change the directories and/or file names to fit your installation):
   
/usr/share/indi -> /opt/local/share/indi
/usr/lib/libindi.0.dylib -> /opt/local/lib/libindi.0.6.dylib

   The commands for these are something like:
   
sudo ln -s /opt/local/share/indi /usr/share/indi
sudo ln -s /opt/local/lib/libindi.0.6.dylib /usr/lib/libindi.0.dylib

   Actually, the first link (to /opt/local/share/indi) is probably not really necessary -- one could alternately just point kstars toward the correct "share" location by making a change in the kstars|Preferences|INDI menu.
   
   
4. Also, if you previously had KStars installed on your machine, you may need to delete your old configuration files (in ~/Library/Preferences/KDE/share/apps/kstars) for the changes to take effect. In the end, you should be able to see something like this:
   

Hopefully INDI will be officially supported in OSX in later releases of kdeedu4/kstars, rendering this complicated process unnecessary!

It is my quasi long-term goal to put together a system for astrophotography. This consists of three major units: a telescope, a telescope mount, and a CCD camera. Unfortunately, this equipment is very expensive. The mount that I selected -- and the first piece of equipment in this set -- was a Takahashi NJP – about $7500 retail, but on July 22, 2007 I found one that included a Meade Giant Field Tripod on Astromart for about $5500. After corresponding with the seller, I sent a check on July 31.

Needless to say, I was very anxious as I waited at home for the UPS driver to deliver it on August 9. After unpacking the boxes (it was shipped in 6 packages) I was not at all pleased with what I saw. The Temma (electronics) control box was severely dented and, although it was not obvious at the time, the right ascension motor was also destroyed.



The seller (who will remain anonymous) was very helpful in contacting UPS and filing a claim, and on August 14 UPS was supposed to contact me to schedule an inspection visit to photograph the damage. They eventually did call and visited on August 16. The inspector was noncommittal when asked about whether or not the claim would be paid – for the most part she just took photos. After this, there were no developments for quite some time, and what correspondence did occur was between the seller and UPS.

In any case, I was now left with a non-functional and very expensive mount, so repairing it was the only real option. I had it crated in wood and shipped (via FedEx this time) back to Texas Nautical Repair on August 21 – it arrived on August 24 and repairs began.

On September 4 I received an email from the seller indicating that UPS had initially denied the claim due to insufficient packaging (apparently having it double-boxed with the inner “box” consisting of a $400 Pelican case is considered “insufficient”), but that he intended to fight that determination. I do not know exactly what happened next, but on September 10 I received another email from the seller indicating that the claim would be paid by UPS. On October 17 the seller mailed me a check to reimburse me for the cost of shipping the mount back to Texas for repair (which UPS reimbursed him for, I understand).

On October 22 the repairs were finished (costing about $1250, which the seller paid and UPS reimbursed) and Art at Texas Nautical Repair shipped the mount back to me via UPS. I was not particularly happy with this choice of companies, but it arrived intact on October 25. Due to a 3-week business trip to Japan on November 3, I did not do any extensive testing other than to verify that the mount was physically intact.

So, after 4 months of waiting, I have a working NJP mount. The seller in this case was incredibly helpful, and the whole experience didn’t cost me anything extra in the end. Still, I will always have a deep-seated distrust of UPS due to this incident, and I intend to avoid doing business with them whenever possible. Had the seller not been willing to stand up to their initial denial of the claim, I would have been out $1250 due to their gross mishandling of such a valuable item.