[montewilson (Monte)]

Guys - Here is a post I put on the Software Bisque forum. I guess there may be a few people here using TPoint too, which is a godsend for goto users. If so I would be grateful for their input to this product development suggestion.


Like most people in this section I'm a happy TPoint user. It has made a wonderful difference to my pointing accuracy. After six or so points the star is always very close to the centre of the frame and only gets closer with additional points.

That said I think the product could be improved with respect to data entry, star centering ect.

Let me explain how I do it to give you an idea of where I am coming from.
I have an EM-200 with a Tak FSQ-106 and STL-11000m with which I use TheSky 6 & CCDSoft.
I use an STV as my "crosshairs" in E Finder mode so I don't have to look through an illuminated eyepiece. It works well. But one of my biggest frustrations is using the motion controls in TheSky. They can't be improved and work fine but centering the star with these controls is quite a challenge.
I was doing this last night and it occurred to me there is probably (from my layman's persepective) a way to use the existing faetures of CCDSoft and TheSky to automate the mapping process.

CCDSoft can calculate the position of and centre stars and take images on command. TheSky can talk to TPoint so I am guessing it should be possible to automate the mapping process.

My thought is the mapping command would exist in TheSky. Prior to telling TheSky to map CCD Soft would have to be running. CCSSoft would have to be calibrated just as for autoguiding. This will allow it to centre the star. The STL can be set to image at 9x9 to reduce dowload times. Other CDD's have similar features I'm sure.

Lets assume we start in a given constellation. After we sync on a bright star in the constellation and then tell to it start auto mapping, it will go for another star of a set minimum brightness within a set distance. We are assuming the mount is more or less polar aligned so if CCDSoft chooses a close star it should appear on the camera ccd . At this point the program assumes the brightest star in the field is the desired one and centres it and maps it. Once this is done The Sky chooses another nearby star and repeats the process. As the number of points mapped increases The Sky can choose more distant stars for subsequent mapping points.

If it chooses the wrong star in a crowded field and an error is detected by TPoint it can be ignored and the system chooses a new star and trys again.
This would be really helpful for people who are setting up in new places frequently. It can done when the sky is not quite ready for imaging so when it is there is not a lot of time spent mapping.

There is one thing I should mention. The motion controls in CCDSoft work (with the Tak) as a ghost of the hand controller so if it is set in guiding mode the correcting is very slow and centering a star could be time consuming. If the mount is in slew mode the star could rocket right past the centre point and become very difficult to get exactly right. TheSky can control movement very well at both speeds but to my knowledge doesn't control actions in CCDSoft.

Can TheSky get x-y values from CCDSoft and make corrections from there to take advantage of Sky's ability to control movement? This would be faster and more accurate.

In a perfect world this software could estimate the offset of the star on the ccd sensor and not need to centre it at all. This would speed things up even more.

I appreciate this all sounds easy to someone who doesn't program computers but if it isn't particularly difficult it would be a great addition and a strong selling point too.