Paramount MX questions

[cventer]

Been reading MX manual in anticipation for my MX arrival next week and have a few questions I hope those with MX's and ME's can answer.

1. Manual often references objects on east and west of meridian. Is this for same in southern hemisphere? Ie we don't have to reverse this?

2. With PEC do you use the bisque tcs PEC routines with ccdsoft or have you seen better results from pempro and then upload pempro curve ? Can you use pempro to upload curve to mx or do you have to use bisque tcs?

3. When you loosen clutches on mx does it lose position ? Ie you need to realign afterwards. Eg if you loosen clutch to rebalance the scope mid session do you need to return to home and then resync?

4. Are the slew limits set to right side of mount. Ie east or west when you set mount to southern hemisphere or do you have to manually update this?

Also anyone know if relays are functional? Seen a few posts now on st4 port not working as expected. Direct guide is suggested but this means ccdsoft and ascom drivers for starshoot and I rather like phd for guiding.

[gregbradley]

1. Manual often references objects on east and west of meridian. Is this for same in southern hemisphere? Ie we don't have to reverse this?

There is a setting for the southern hemisphere in the Sky 6 and it needs to be done only once.

2. With PEC do you use the bisque tcs PEC routines with ccdsoft or have you seen better results from pempro and then upload pempro curve ? Can you use pempro to upload curve to mx or do you have to use bisque tcs?

I tried a trial version of Pempro and it said it was fully functional. I plotted a PE curve and it was supposed to be able to be uploadable directly into The Sky 6, I tried many times to upload it and it would not. I am not sure if that feature is disabled in the trial version. Per Pempro it would appear the only advantage of PEMPRO is the fact it adjusts for no squareness of the chip when doing the PE curve if I recall righty. I just made sure my chip was square when I did the PEC of the SB Precision PE. The curve uploaded easily with Precision PEC and the results spoke for themselves - round stars.

3. When you loosen clutches on mx does it lose position ? Ie you need to realign afterwards. Eg if you loosen clutch to rebalance the scope mid session do you need to return to home and then resync?

Just send it to home and you are all set. No need to resync.

4. Are the slew limits set to right side of mount. Ie east or west when you set mount to southern hemisphere or do you have to manually update this?

Don't know this but the limits are there to be set in the dialogue box items in the Sky 6.

Also anyone know if relays are functional? Seen a few posts now on st4 port not working as expected. Direct guide is suggested but this means ccdsoft and ascom drivers for starshoot and I rather like phd for guiding.[/QUOTE]

I've only used direct drive which is very convenient so I don't know.

Greg.

[frolinmod]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

There is a setting for the southern hemisphere in the Sky 6 and it needs to be done only once.

You cannot use The Sky 6 with a Paramount MX mount. But yeah, TheSkyX has a Northern/Southern hemisphere setting in Telescope->Tools->Bisque TCS that changes the appropriate parameters.

2. With PEC do you use the bisque tcs PEC routines with ccdsoft or have you seen better results from pempro and then upload pempro curve ? Can you use pempro to upload curve to mx or do you have to use bisque tcs?

You can use CCDsoft and the built-in PrecisionPEC functionality in TheSkyX->Telescope->Tools->Bisque TCS. TheSkyX knows the MX harmonics better than PEMpro does. Honestly. (At least for now it does. PEMpro will need to play catch up soon in that regard.) Or you can use PEMpro if you insist. If you use PEMpro, you have to copy the final curve to the pasteboard and then paste it in within TheSkyX->Telescope->Bisque TCS. I think you also need a recent update of PEMpro for this to work. For sure you also have to use one of the most recent daily updates of TheSkyX because a problem with being able to update PEC surfaced and was fixed in the daily build. Watch for regressions. They happen.

I plotted a PE curve and it was supposed to be able to be uploadable directly into The Sky 6...

You cannot use The Sky 6 with a Paramount MX mount.

Don't know this but the limits are there to be set in the dialogue box items in the Sky 6.

You cannot use The Sky 6 with a Paramount MX mount.

Also anyone know if relays are functional? Seen a few posts now on st4 port not working as expected. Direct guide is suggested but this means ccdsoft and ascom drivers for starshoot and I rather like phd for guiding.

Supposedly only a few of the first Paramount MX mounts had this problem. All the rest should already have a firmware update loaded that solves this problem. If your mount ends up being one of those early ones, a simple firmware update will solve the problem. However, that firmware update is not public yet and you may need to e-mail one of the Bisque's to obtain it.

[gregbradley]

So Ernie, can you use the Sky 6 with a Paramount MX mount?

Greg.

[cventer]

Thanks everyone. Sure I will have more soon.

Looks like using bisque tcs for PEC is the go rather than pempro.

I notice north south orientation seems important to this. Does it matter if longer side of rectangular chip is in north south plane vs shorter side so long as either are parallel to north south and east west?

Also when setting limits can you set these on both sides. Ie set east limit after checking east radio button then update flash and then click set west and do the same. Or can you only se limit on one side ?

Be nice to be able to start an imaging run when an object is say 2 hours east of meridian and then have it track over into the west. Using the colored or shaded area in sky x should make this easy but will require limits set on both sides.

[gregbradley]

I don't know that chip orientation longer side or shorter side is important, rather that they are square. Check the manual on that point though. You also need to have your polar alignment pretty good first as well. Otherwise you won't be able to keep the guide star in the frame of the chip for the time required to record a decent number of worm cycles. I used 20 minutes and it has to be pretty accurate to keep it in the guide frame for 20 minutes at least using CCDsoft it is.

What is also vital is east/west otherwise your curve will be upside down and it will be pushing when it should be pulling so to speak.

Greg.