Hello Bill,
I just downloaded the new version. The realistic background is nice.
Perhaps you could change the color of the legend text that way that it
is black when the sky is bright and turns white when it's getting darker.
But now I have a problem with displaying the guiding chips. Even with
the ST-7 and other SBIG cameras no guidig chip at all is displayed.
---- Pause. ----- I just solved the problem: I was using german
language. After changing to english its ok. Overwriting CCDS.NAD
(this is the german language version) with CCDS.NAM solved it.
Perhaps there could be some similar problems with other languages
too. So a good advice for any other non english language users could
be to test with english language if guide don't behave as it should.
> Bernd, thanks for the comments about the SBIG chip placement data.
> I'd e-mailed SBIG about this, and very shortly afterward, got an "I've
> added it; look here" reply from Michael Barber. Chalk one up for SBIG.
>
> I hadn't realized that the MegaTEK had a guider chip, much less
> _two_ guider chips, one on each side of the main chip! (The
> accompanying text on that page says that this allows for correction for
> field rotation, especially useful on alt/az scopes. At least, I think
> that's what it says; my German is mediocre at best.)
That's right.
> One problem I see
> is that both chips are very small, with about 1% the area of the main
> chip. Getting a good guiding star on one of the chips might be painful;
> getting one on _both_ of them at the same time might be almost
> impossible. But it's an interesting idea.
One reason for two guiding chips was that SBIG has a patent on CCD
cameras with o n e guiding chip. But nonetheless it's interesting as
you said and the owner community of the 20 cameras that were built
decided to do so (yes the camera was desingned and built by Frank
Fleischmann, OES (
http://www.fonline.de/home/ff/index.htm) together
with the wishes of the later users in mind). But you need a l a r g e
and f l a t field ov view to use both guiding chips (at least 65 mm in
diameter). And the software to control a fieldderotator has to be written
too...
> In any case, allowing for two (or more) guider chips required
> only a very small modification to Guide, and I've made it.
Thanks a lot and clear skies
Bernd
Bernd Brinkmann
Herne, Germany
http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Bernd.A.Brinkmann/index.html