Hello Bill,

I am also belonging to the guys who are running a permanent meteor video
camera ("HERMINE" in the IMO video network, see http://www.imonet.org/). And
I also would prefer to have the same Alt/Az coordinates at startup. My
workaround was to save a mark with the fov (CCD frame) set to the correct
Alt/Az orientation and after changing time set Alt/Az again (52 / 90 deg) by hand.

> As a partial workaround for the situation you describe,
> I've added the following feature: if Guide is run with a
> command-line argument such as
>
> guide8 -oA265,75
>
> then it will start up looking at azimuth 265, altitude
> 75 (near the zenith, a little south of due west). You can
> combine this with adjusting the time; for example,
>
> guide8 -t+1h -oA265,75
>
> would tell Guide to show the sky as it would appear one
> hour from "right now", looking at that same alt/az position.

I just tried to edit my mar file: removing the lines with the following numbers:
1, 2, 16 (ra, dec,currtime) but with no success.

> But this doesn't address the other question you asked,
> about having Guide be able to go to a particular fixed alt/az.
> I'll have to get back to you on that one!
>
> The various comments on this make me think that maybe
> Guide ought to be working like this:
>
> If you're in "alt/az" mode (zenith is at the top of the
> screen, the horizon is level), then when you exit Guide
> and later re-start the program, the alt/az should be left
> unchanged. That is, if you shut the program down looking
> a little bit above the southwestern horizon, the program
> should start up looking at the same point above the horizon.
> If an hour has gone by, the stars will be shifted by 15
> degrees.
>
> If you're in any other mode, including the default
> "celestial coordinate" mode (celestial north is at the top
> of the screen), things should continue to work as they do
> now: when you exit Guide and re-start the program, it
> should start up centered on the same RA/dec as before.
>
> Unfortunately, this isn't as easy as it might sound.
> I will give it some thought, once this update is solidified!

Thanks for your efforts and clear skies
Bernd


Bernd Brinkmann

Sternwarte Herne, MPC code A18
Herne, Germany

e-mail: info@...
http://www.sternwarte-herne.de