Re: [guide-user] LX200 control - mod possibilities?

Bob Elliott Apr 21, 2003

At 18:07 2003-04-21 +0000, Lawrence wrote:
>Guide has a fair control over the LX200 telescope - better than my
>imaging program so I use Guide to control my LX200. Is it possible to
>put a mosaic and synchronise feature in to improve usability?
>
>By synchronise, I mean that when the telescope knows where it is, you
>can use its built-in controls to GOTO a specific NGC (or other) object.
>With Guide, you can point and GOTO, but there is usually a residual
>error. I have not seen a method to say to the program - this is where
>the telescope is actually pointing (rather than where you think it is
>pointing).

Lawrence. You can synchronize the LX200 with Guide by taking an image and
locate a star near the center of the image. Then find that star on Guide
and left click on it. Now go to the scope pad button and at the top of
that dialog box is a button called add alignment star. click on that and
the LX-200 is now aligned on that location. The residual error you mention
is due to the fact that, if I remember correctly, the LX-200 only keeps the
RA to the nearest tenth of a minute of time which is 1.5 arc minutes, a
significant amount of the CCD chip dimension.
Look on Page 91 of the LX-200 manual for the command set.

Bob Elliott
750 Fall Creek



>The mosaic feature would allow a series of pictures to be taken in a
>strip of one or more dimensions with a nominal overlap for each. This
>would allow larger images to be compiled. It would simply drive the
>requested distance and then wait for the programmed images to be taken
>(using the imaging program) before continuing.
>