From: "Tim" <tjp314@pacbell.net>

Date: August 2, 2005 5:24:54 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: Astro IIDC 2.02.06 B6

Milton:

Hm... interesting stuff.

I've got an old Super Polaris mount that still has the "original" Skysensor and 5-pin

connector motors on it. It's not one of the "original original" that had the oscillation due

to the stepper motors that made high magnification planetary viewing impossible - but it

was the original Skysensor with upgraded stepper motors (or maybe the board within the

SS). It works very well for tracking, though, and the periodic error is very low (can't

remember the value now, though).

I've thought of upgrading it with a modern goto, initially thinking maybe I could put the

CG-5 "advanced" motors and contoller on it, but everyone seems to be using the Meade

DS55 and Autostar systems. Maybe that would be the way for me to go for that mount.

-Tim.

--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Milton Aupperle <milton@o...> wrote:

Hi Tim;

On 2-Aug-05, at 4:43 PM, Tim wrote:

So you've decided against Celestron mount control?

Yep - Celestron is a complete kludge (I confirmed this with Darryl

Robertson of Equinox) to make work for guiding using the serial port,

so I pulled it. For Goto stuff or large directional changes it "sort

of" works, but not for tracking.

It doesn't support "real" slewing while tracking. So to move it say 1

arc second west you have to take it out of whatever mode its' in,

slew it west 1 arc second AND also add in whatever it was supposed to

move during that period of time in that mode, then put it back into

the mode it was originally so it will track again. However you can't

tell what mode its' in because they don't support reading the mode

first, so you can't restore it to whatever it was originally. And I

don't want to screw around with making the assumption that it's in EQ

N or EQ S or AZM tracking or No mode either.

The Meade scopes (or equivalents) and my IsoOptical USB board ( I

hard wired it into my Orion EQ3/2 mount's hand controller) don't work

like that at all. It keep tracking and you add an additional movement

direction on top of it. This is why I'm saying Celestron is a kludge.

Shoot. On the other hand, guiding with a webcam, unless it can

take fairly low-noise

images longer than a second, might not work.

Actually I had pretty good results using 2 copies of Astro IIDC with

2 cameras, one for guiding ( a monochrome Unibrain) and one capturing

(PGR Flea 16 bit color). I use a 200 mm F4 SLR M42 screw mount

telephoto lens with a 2x and a 3x teleconverter (effective focal

length of 1200 mm) as my guide scope and my 127 mm aperture MAK scope

with a MOOG focal reducer (effective focal length of 550 mm) for

image capture.

I could guide on any star that was magnitude 6 or brighter and that

was in downtown calgary (Mag 3 skies on a superb night - normally Mag

1).

TTYL..

Milton J. Aupperle

President

ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting

Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist

#1005 - 815 14th Avenue. S.W.

Calgary Alberta Canada T2R0N5

1-(403)-229-9456

milton@o...