[gregbradley]

I got some feedback from Roland on a couple of questions. I discovered that I had set my autoguiding settings wrong. At least for this mount.

I was using .5 minimum move and 2.0 or 3.0 maximum move. I was lowering it to the default .01 minimum and that seemed to work better. But tightening the maximum move should ignore moves not needed.

The 0.5 min/2.0 maximum came from the CCDWare autoguiding calculator but that is for direct guide which is a Software Bisque way of controlling the mount from autoguider corrections. AP uses Pulse guiding or relays. I can't quite tell if pulse guiding is the same as Direct Guide but I think its very similar. Both do not need an autoguider cable.

Roland said to use .01 to .03 for minimum move and .3 to .5 maximum move depending on the focal length ( I assume by that he uses .3 for the longer focal lengths?). .01 minimum move for good seeing, .03 for less good seeing.

2 to 8 second guide exposures, aggressiveness 6 to 10 with 6 in poor seeing and 10 for good seeing.

Callibrate at celestial equator. Reverse commands with meridian flip.

Backlash settings to zero. Guide frame size 16 x 16 to minimise cosmic ray hits.

I just fitted an AP 16 inch saddle to the AP1600 to hold the Honders more firmly as it has 3 tightening points and is super well made.

I am redoing TPoint models and Polar Alignment. 400 point Tpoint model in progress.

As a tip, I think its faster to use Pempro's polar alignment wizard to get PA very close rather than a series of TPoint models. Then use Tpoint to do a 35 point model and do the accurate polar alignment routine. Then a large Tpoint model and do the accurate polar alignment routine. I think that's about as accurate as it can be.

I am also going to experiment and see if I can track with no autoguiding and Protrack only and get round stars at 5 and 10 minute exposures.

Update: I did the 403 point Tpoint model Accurate Polar Alignment (a very small tweak so PA is essentially perfect). I tried a 5 minute exposure Protrack only - not too bad but somewhat elongated stars. With autoguiding - perfect. Packing out the camera to get rid of tilt. One corner seems in, weird. A tip if you do this. The image on the screen corresponds to the same corners of the camera looking at the camera from the back. So top left of screen is top left of camera looking at it from its back. That can save you a lot of time figuring that out!

Some of the lowest guide errors I've ever gotten. Up there with the PMX and AP140 a few months ago. 3 second guide exposures. 0.1 minimum move, .3 maximum move, aggressiveness 4, Pulse guiding in Sky X running the autoguider.

Greg.