Quote:
Originally Posted by OneOfOne
In a similar vein, I have also wondered with GoTo scopes why they only move in one axis. I think an option to allow it to move in two axes for tracking objects would be fairly simple (two axis tracking?). Once the reference objects are centred and entered, the computer will have a model of the alignment. From this model it should be able to calculate where the centre of this model differs from where it should be and know that it needs to move the dec motor a certain amount to allow for this error.
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My Losmandy with Gemini will do this with the "closed loop tracking" option. There are 7 tracking options:
1. Terrestrial ie none.
2. Sidereal
3. Lunar
4. Solar
5. King (corrects for average differential atmospheric refraction)
6. Comet (give the starting and end coordinates of the comet over a time period and it will track the comet--good for photography)
7. Closed loop---moves in Dec and RA when the polar alignment is off (up to 8 degrees they say) and you have synched on several stars. Fine for visual, but will give field rotation, so no good for long exposure astropics.
I'd be surprised if other mounts like Takahashi didn't have similar options.
Geoff