View Single Post
  #396  
Old 12-07-2013, 10:34 AM
gary
Registered User

gary is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Mt. Kuring-Gai
Posts: 5,914
Argo Navis TPAS assists with blind pointing Mallincam

A Canadian customer emailed us yesterday who owns a Starmaster 16” f/4.3 Dob
to which he had added a Mallincam in the hope of being able to still observe
DSO's from his mag. 4 limited light polluted city skies.

The challenge he faced was being able to get the scope to blind point onto the Mallincam sensor.

This is where the in-built Argo Navis Telescope Pointing Analysis System (TPAS) came to the rescue.

It was such a good story that I thought other Argo Navis owners would be interested in reading it too.

He writes -

Quote:
Originally Posted by RP
Hi!

Yesterday evening a really great session.

The goal I’d set more than a year ago of being able to use my Starmaster 16” f/4.3 dob with a Mallincam, and be able to point accurately enough to get DSOs on the monitor screen has been fully accomplished. I did a TPAS sesssion that improved my pointing substantially.

RMS RAW = 15.7’
RMS FITTED = 3.4’

IE = –15.8 +/- 2.9’
NPAE = +20.4 +/- 2.5’
ECEC = 22.0 +/- 4.6’

19 sampled stars.

I was the able to place 20 other stars in a row on the Mallincam chip which gives a screen of approx 24’ wide and 18’ high. Not very big. There was only one problematic star, and it turns out it was a variable star that was much fainter than it’s max. Then the moment of truth: I placed 30 DSOs in a row onto the Mallincam screen. Very impressive pointing!! It took 12 observing sessions, plus 12 ‘garage’ tweaking sessions, along with your excellent support/help all along the way in the form of many eMails, advice, etc.

I was able to ‘observe’ on the screen many many objects that were not at all visible in the eyepiece here, in my mag 4 light-polluted city skies. Galaxies down to mag 15.5 All kinds of structure. Three stars inside M57. M101 spiral arms. NGC7331 with four of it’s faint firely galaxies. All five of Stephan’s Quintet. The list goes on and on. Without the Argo Navis pointing accuracy, there’s no way I’d be able to find these targets well enough for the Mallincam, unless I’d spend 30 minutes per DSO and revert to blind star-hopping. There are still a couple of bleeps to attend to, but the concept is fully proven, now. This definitely will work even better than I dared hope. Thanks very much for making this amazing device, and sticking by me with assistance / support until I got it going properly.

Makes a huge difference in my ability to observe from the city. Wanted to let you know.

Thanks again,

RP
Reply With Quote