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computer control of a scope. "Slew Scope" is used for aiming the telescope. If you have found and clicked on a location in Guide, hitting "Slew Scope" will slew the telescope to that location. You can also do this by hitting F11 or Ctrl-F1 at any point in Guide. For the JMI/MG-III based systems, there are again no motors to move the telescope. In this case, a red indicator appears on the chart to show where the telescope is pointed, and is updated every second or so. Clicking on "Slew Scope" again will shut off the display of this indicator. The "Slew Guide" option will cause Guide to find out where the telescope is pointed. Guide will then pan to that location, leaving the telescope where it is. You can also do this by hitting F12 or Ctrl-F2 at any point in Guide. Also, if you have toggled to the Sky Commander and have selected its port, you can copy a list of positions from Guide to the Sky Commander. You can then take the Sky Commander into the field and observe those objects. This is further described in the section on the User Object menu, on page 37. One note about the "Alt/Az" system. This button corresponds to a stepper-motor system designed by Mel Bartels and used by several Dobsonian owners. The advantages of the Alt/Az system are simplicity, good precision, and very low cost. The system consists of stepper motors added to the altitude and azimuth axes, and driven by the PC. All of the "intelligence" for alignment, etc. is in the Alt/Az software, making for very minimal hardware requirements. If you have an interest in connecting your own, customized computer-controlled telescope to Guide, you may wish to check the file \COMPRESS\XTROL.DOC on the CD-ROM. It contains some data on how communication with LX-200 and ALTAZ systems is done by Guide. 11a: Encoder-based systems As was mentioned above, handling alignment of JMI/MG-III type systems ("Tangent Instrument boxes") is a somewhat different process from that required for other systems. The other systems have built-in hardware to handle alignment. Tangent Instrument boxes require Guide to handle that task. To use your JMI/MG-III compatible encoders, hook up the interface to the computer, start Guide, and click on "Settings... Telescope Control". Select the serial port used for the encoders; this is usually COM2, but it may be COM1 on some laptops. And in some odd cases, it may be COM3 or COM4.
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