Hi Eric,
Thanks for the post and congratulations on your Messier Marathon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erick
However I had no plans to do this the hard way  . I went for pushto on my 12" dob, driven by the Argo Narvis pointing computer.
It was actually a challenge for the following reason. With my wobbly scope, I would normally regularly realign as I progressed through an evening. If I find the objects are starting to fall off centre, I just flick the Argo over to MODE ALIGN, centre the object and align on it, which pulls the Argo back on track. However, the way I was doing this marathon was by working my way through a USER CATALOG I had established in the Argo with all Messier objects in ascending RA order. The problem with this is that if I dropped out of this mode to do an alignment, I could not return to where I was, but had to start again. I discovered this when I was a dozen objects in! So I couldn't touch the alignment all night after that. But it did well. |
If you use the feature of MODE CATALOG whereby you spin the DIAL
to view successive objects in a catalog, if you exit that catalog to view
or align on an object from some other arbitrary catalog, when you return to the
original catalog, it will still be at the position you left off. So there is no reason
to start over again.
So for example, if you left the Messier Catalog at say M76 to align on nearby
CAS DELTA, when you go back to MODE CATALOG, simply spin the dial until
it says MESSIER, then do nothing except press ENTER successive times and
you will be back at M76.
Argo Navis remembers the last object you accessed in a particular catalog
so that when you re-enter that catalog by just doing nothing except pressing the
ENTER button, you will return to the last object you accessed in that catalog.
if you re-enter a catalog and spin the DIAL, you will by that act be changing
the default last object you dialed up. So just press the ENTER button.
This feature is also why a "backspace key" is not needed. If you ever make
an entry error, if you press EXIT it will jump all the way out of the menu
but all you need then do is press ENTER and nothing else successive times
until you are back to the field you need to correct. It is designed for use
with one thumb.
Once again, congratulations for your Messier Marathon!
Best Regards
Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Fax +61-2-9457-9593
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au