Claude Boivin Jun 30, 2000
>Hi folks,
>
> About realigning with encoders... the way this is supposed to work
>is as follows. You use Guide "as usual" with the encoders in an
>attempt to find an object, and perhaps find that it's not quite on.
>You right-click on a nearby star in Guide, click "OK", and then
>center that star in the telescope. You then click on "Add Alignment
>Star". In theory (and, usually, in practice), you'll find that
>your pointing in that part of the sky has become much better.
>
> "...When i start a new session on a second night what is the procedure
>to get the encoders and guide7 to start working again ?." It depends.
>At one time, I told people that, sadly, you had to completely re-align
>each night, because each time the encoder box loses power, you lose
>alignment. It turns out that this is not strictly true if your scope is
>alt/az or hour angle/dec. In those cases, all you have to do is make
>sure that the scope is in the same position each time you start up the
>encoders and run through the "Scope Control" dialog.
>
> This works because, when the Scope Control dialog sets the encoder
>resolutions, it also initializes them to a consistent value. So you'll
>be exactly repeating its configuration from night to night.
>
> That said, I know that Gordon Garradd is trying this stunt and has
>found errors of about half a degree. I'm still puzzling over that one.
>If anyone else tries this, please let me know.
>
> Mark, about Charon: I'd suggest trying 640x480, 16-color mode.
>The reason is that this mode is consistently implemented on all VGA
>cards (manufacturers decided to go in all directions at once when it
>came to higher-res and color modes.) If it fails, I'd suspect that
>DOS is failing to understand the pointing device. I've never heard of
>that happening, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least; in fact,
>I'm more surprised that it hasn't happened yet.
>
> I've been taking a few steps in the direction of a Windows version
>of Charon, mostly in terms of breaking user interface code apart from
>everything else (so that "everything else" need not be rewritten every
>time the code goes from one OS to another). It's not much of a priority
>right now, unfortunately, with Guide 8 running a few months behind my
>expectations. (One other benefit of breaking up the Charon code is that
>people should be able to make much better use of individual pieces. I've
>written a bit about this at
>
>http://www.projectpluto.com/source.htm#charon
>
> And speaking of things on my Web site: those of you curious about
>my question about using cheap Webcams for imaging stars should look
>here:
>
>http://www.projectpluto.com/webcam.htm
>
> My hope is to use these cameras to make a cheap, but quite good,
>star tracking system... it might make encoders just about obsolete
>if it works as I think it will.
>
>-- Bill
>
>
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