[g__day (Matthew)]

There are four functions I wish a serious GE control program could do, three around polar alignment and one to better assess and manage backlash.

Let's discuss the first three to do with determining scope set-up and achieveing best polar alignment once you've done a 1,2 3 ... or 6 star align:

Desire one - when you are off polar alignment state the error in English (E.g. Mount is 2 minutes left and 4 minutes high from South Celestial pole).

Desire two - given it knows the above pointing error, allow it to align on a known, bright guide star - not the very faint Polaris Australis in Sigma Octans. Say you have the above known error in desire 1 and Rigel is quite visible somewhere above the horizon. Have the scope slew to Rigel (correcting for the mount polar alignment error automatically, pause there for 15 seconds - so an amateur knows what it should be pointing to, then slew away from it by the above pointing errors in both axes. Next tell the user to re-align the mount (by lowering and moving right the mount until in this example Rigel is dead centre), and your polar alignment should be much better.

You could then re-align and recheck the polar alignment and if necessary repeat the above test.

Desire three - When a scope is not correctly polar aligned, some mounts (e.g Celestron CG5) goto an object correctly, but then only track in RA, rather than drive both motors compensating for alignment error as a really sensible option they could quite easily estimate). I don't see why this has to be, it would be simple mathematics to correct for any know errors in tracking a correct path around the sphere from any starting point on the sphere. To only run the RA is simply lazy!

4. Test for how much backlash is in the gears and correct compensation and optimisation for this!