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Dennis,
I get the sense the Japanese just abandoned the software side of something that is remarkably powerful.
For example - resume on wake pointing accuracy. You might be aware I wish to utilise this mount / hand controllers ability to recall all alignment settings on power on. Basically power on then wait 5 seconds and press Esc. When you do this the mount is supposed to recall all its last point configuration data. At present the mount is slightly off polar alignment even thought I have told it that it is correctly polar aligned. So to check pointing I generally slew to Rigel Kentarus to see how well it recalls its alignment. To start with it was 1/2 a degree off - on all three alignment stars. Then MaxPoint told me my polar alignment was 1/2 a degree out. So I am trying a new trick.
On power I slew to the first of my three alignment stars Rigel Kentarus, then I manually adjust the Alt / Az on the mount base. Then I go to two other stars and just correct pointing error. I have done this two days in a row and the pointing error on the initial goto is getting much less and less each day. I'd estimate its gone from 30 arc minutes on day one to 20 arc minutes on day two to less than 10 arc minutes off today. So on my camera's viewfinder the star is just a fraction outside the box surrounding the very central focal point on my DSLR's 9 focal points - meaning if I shot now the star would be very, very close to dead centre.
That's a whoopee function to me - it means from power on I am basically ready to go. Given that my main OTA is carbon fibre with its extremely low thermal expansion coefficient - I have only adjusted focus once in two months. So there is the beauty of a well calibrated, correctly aligned mount - switch it on and I only have to re-calibrate PHD and I'm good to go.
How good were the Japanese fab if basically a 10 year old design is basically power on and use for astro-photography day after day after day? There is real pleasure in owning this rig!
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