Hello. My understanding is that the Celestron AUX driver can use a USB to serial adapter connected to the hand controller, but as opposed to the Celestron GPS driver it will simply use the Hand controller as a serial command passthrough. Is that correct? There is a lot of information regarding how to connect to the AUX port directly, and they all seem to require specialized adapters to deal with the fact that the AUX ports are shared, and have an uncommon pinout (including providing 12V to power peripherals). I'd prefer to use the AUX driver instead of the GPS driver because I want Ekos/ Kstars to do alignment ... I don't want to have to use the hand controller to align.

If my understanding is correct I'd make the humble request that the write up here: indilib.org/telescopes/celestron.html icnludes the important fact that the Hand controller can be used as passthrough for the AUX driver. This opens up the possibility to use simple USB to serial adapters like this:

www.amazon.com/Connect-celestron-nexstar...l%2Caps%2C188&sr=8-4

Thanks so much for your help!

P.S. .. warning for others about my mistake (which I now see others warned about already).

I jumped the gun and ordered that serial adapter and assumed since it mentioned Celestron that it was for the AUX port (honestly I didn't even see that the hand controller had a port). Anyway, after melting the RJ12 plug I realized my mistake. Luckily the mount seems undamaged as I can still control it from the hand-controller. Looking at the pinout after the fact it seems that the melting was due to contention between the +12V provided by the mount and the +5V provided by the serial adapter. The melting occurred at an RJ12 panel mount adapter I have in a custom enclosure I designed. My theory is that that small amount of resistance in the connector adapter is what took the brunt of the the difference between 12 volts and 5 volts thus causing the excitement. This was 6 feet of cable away from the mount so no physical damage from the heat, and I'm hopeful no electrical damage since I can still see the mount is still proving the 12V. It could obviously supply enough current to melt the plastic, but it wasn't so much that it blew the 5A fuse that I'm using to supply the mount. So, lesson learned .. when you're unable to connect using an INDI driver .. a strong smell of smoke may be a clue it's not software settings.