The Sky 6 alignments

[LewisM]

This horrid weather is letting me familiarise myself very well with the NJP running through The Sky 6, but of course, any goto alignments.syncing practice is impossible.

After coming from using the Synscan alignment routines, I hope I am understanding it correctly. Basically, so long as my polar alignment is VERY good, all I have to do to align the mount/scope in The Sky 6 is to chose a star with the crosshairs and select the telescope tab from the star's menu and hit Sync? Is that ALL that is required to align the software so it knows where to go, which corrections may be needed?

Can I further build the model by resyncing on additional stars (different hemispheres etc), or does each Sync clear the prior data?

Sorry, but I am lazy at reading helpfiles (found Bisques writing unclear many times)

[Chris85]

A mate uses it and tells me he has a 300 point model, so I'm guessing it adds to the existing data instead of deleting

[frolinmod]

Every sync in TheSky6 overwrites the prior sync. You can use Tpoint for Windows to build a pointing model for use with TheSky6. If I remember correctly this wasn't at all fun in Tpoint for Windows. If you do this you might want to look into AAG Tpoint mapper to make it easier. (All this stuff is obsolete in TheSkyX.)

[g__day]

With some ASCOM drivers - not matter what you tell the Sky6 to do - it seems to disregard SYNCs to protect the pointing model (maybe this is only enforced when external programs - like Astro Tortilla - try to issue the sync.) The Bisque brothers said this was meant to protect the pointing model and is a good thing - but I never did get to the bottom of it when I tried to get The Sky6 PE, Tpoint, a Vixen Atlux + SkySensor2000-PC, and Astro Tortilla to all play nice together!

[Paul Haese]

With no home position doing a Tpoint model is a waste of time, so forget that. When I was using an EM400 I think I did a sync and then three star alignment. I had to do this each time I setup. No home position is very limiting in the end.

[LewisM]

That is what I am going to be doing Paul, thanks. Seeing the mount is non-fixed, it's the only way anyway, so a home position doesn't help much regardless.

[g__day]

Paul,

One thing I had found for a permanently mounted set up with no homing position on the mount.

1. You do a several hundred point model in Tpoint - save this as your master model.
2. On next mount power on do time check against internet time and then a 3 star alignment from the hand controller - which is normally very quick.
3. Then connect the Sky6 and open the Tpoint model.
4. Select Model -> Short Mapping Run. Do a 6 - 12 point star alignment.
5. Close and save the current Tpoint model.

This so SB tell me is the best way to re-sync the several hundred point master model to your current session!

[frolinmod]

Yup, that sounds about right. Excellent memory you have there. That's also what Patrick Wallace recommends to do. It works even better (increased accuracy reported after the recalibration) in TheSkyX build 8458 and up.