Hi all GUIDE fans !

As French translator of Guide, you will understand why I don't intervene
very often on the list, and I apologise for my approximate English and
hope you will understand me.

Concerning the tracking of satellite which is not too far of my every
day activity, I have a comment and a suggestion to the Andre Germain
writing :

>
> We all agree a 'pole' is a problem. But the likelyhood of passing through
> one (or rather near enough to exceed drive rate or resolution problems)
> is low as compared to a VERY large sky!

True it is a problem and whatever the acceleration (i.e.: the power of
the motor and the complexity of the servo-system) you will have a
problem at the 'pole' you will only reduce its size.
With satellites (and stars) however, we have an advantage with respect
to people tracking the planes and the missiles. We know well in advance
that the object will go through our 'pole hole'.
A solution which is used for low earth orbit satellite tracking by the
ground antennas (10 meters or more) is that when this situation is
foreseen to occur on the next pass, the axis of the antenna producing
the 'pole' is slightly tilted (5 to 7 degrees). So the pass do not go
anymore though the new 'pole hole'. As example, for an El/AZ mount, the
Az axis, normally vertical, is tilted by up to 10 degrees. An equatorial
mount would have to 'suffer' some polar mispointing to achieve a
satellite pass through the celestial pole.

Obviously, the coordinates have to be corrected accordingly but that is
an easy task for a soft such as GUIDE. GUIDE even determine accurately
what tilt has been applied from alignment on stars.

For my hobby, satellites are rather annoying objects, GUIDE allow me to
identify the guilty ones of strait line on my CCD images but I cannot
yet charge them...

Finally if you want to build yourself a CCD camera, the AUDINE one, it
is a very cost effective and easy to do camera based on KAF400(E) / 1600
CCD. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions, mine is more often in its
box than behind my telescope. I recommend its WEB site (it is in French
and English):
http://www.astrosurf.org/terre/audine/

Jean-Noel