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Old 20-12-2006, 07:33 PM
jase (Jason)
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Melbourne, Victoria
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Having read through this thread twice, I'm still not too sure where it is going...(perhaps I've miss understood this).

PEC and backlash compensation have very little to do with pointing accuracy of a telescope. PEC and backlash do however affect tracking capabilities.

To improve pointing accuracy, the telescope needs to be "modelled" i.e building a precise star map model. Such a model will take into consideration mirror flop, misalignment of polar axis, flexure etc, etc. The more points across the sky that are mapped, the better the pointing model. Automated pointing models are usually completed using software such as TPoint and Maxpoint (as RogerG mentioned). An 150-200 point model based on the GSC (Hubble Guide Star Catalogue) or Tycho II catalogue will provide an extremely accurate pointing model ensuring objects are centered on a small CCD chip everytime after slewing. Building the model can take time as the telescope slews to the 150-200 stars, but automated scripts make the task easier.

If improvement of PEC/Backlash for tracking is what you are after, you may wish to investigate software such as PEMPro.
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