[PRejto (Peter)]

There was a question earlier re the MTY and the need for a large model.

Like Greg said, pointing is pretty darn good even with a small model. What the large model does is allow for the possibility of not guiding. On my MEII I can quite easily go for 5-7 min unguided with no problem and a 400+ point model and this is at .85 src-sec. Many report 10 min + and recently at the Software Bisque Forum are quite unbelievable non guided images of 30 min!

Being portable doesn't mean that you need to generate a large model every tme you set up! If your setup is reasonably the same each time then the essential terms in the large model can be preserved from night to night! It is only necessary to recalibrate into the large model to re-establish ME and MA (and 2 others I forget at the moment). 6 points is reported to be enough but 20 or so would be better and can be done in a few minutes. Thus, you can use and keep a 400 point model from night to night. Given this I think it is well worth doing. My experience with Protrack is that it doesn't hurt guiding. I know people report otherwise but I could not confirm that and I did experiment.

Also, Greg is spot on re PEMpro. I never could get TSX to do a proper PEC. On both my former MX and now my MEII I could get PE down to around .6 arc-sec. And PEM pro also has a very good drift alignment tool which could be just as fast or easier to use than some of the recommended SB methods. When combined with Protrack even Patric Wallace said that polar alignment would be quite good enough to avoid any serious field rotation. And that, combined with Protrack, which addresses flex and other issues, is a perfectly reasonable way to get going quickly.

Peter