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Old 13-08-2015, 04:26 PM
jase (Jason)
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jase is offline
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Melbourne, Victoria
Posts: 3,916
Nothing like a plan. I hope it goes well for you.

Just some caution in running the Titan in full remote. I did so for 3 years and over that time became quite intimate with Gemini's interworkings. The mount has no homing sensors so as you allude a loss of power during the night can create havoc in knowing where the telescope is pointing. Do your best to park the scope each night after use. A loss of power when parked i.e. during the day will not cause any problems. If you do lose power or in general find that the scope is lost due to some other technical problem, it can easily be recovered with allsky platesolving and performing a sync.

Another gotcha is hitting the east or west slew limits. Gemini will lock up all PC control if this occurs and the Gemini will emit its annoying high pitched alarm, which you will not hear if your are 2hrs drive away. Typically recovery requires pushing buttons on the Gemini hand controller, again difficult if you are 2hrs drive away. You can however work around this I found by scripting LX200 commands directly to the console port on the Gemini. You only need it to slew a small way out of the limit, then you can park the scope and resync if needed. I scripted this the recovery which made is easy to resolve. btw, the high pitch noise appears to be at an ideal frequency for attracting large moths. Try to recover the scope within a couple of hours on warm nights to avoid insect infestation.

If you are going remote, I strongly recommend using ACP to control your set up. You can script the scope's recovery with ease and it also supports allsky platesolving amongst a plethora of other features that you will find extremely powerful when going remote. The titan is a very capable mount once you understand the quirks of the Gemini software. I suspect Gemini v2 has even greater capabilities for remote operation.
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