Paramount MX Park and Setup Advice

[roughy (Mark)]

All the necessary hardware has now arrived to enable me to setup up the PMX and telescopes in the observatory this coming weekend. I will be setting up two scopes side by side.

I was wondering if I may ask what to some may seem the obvious but I would appreciate achieving some clarity.

Firstly, park position. My observatory is easily large enough for this mount and scopes except the slide off roof height. I will not be able to open or close it with the mount in the home position. Page 26 of the manual seems to indicate that he RA axis can be parked close to horizontal (counterweights below horizontal) but the scopes must be pointing above an arc running east to west thought the pole. This too, may pose a problem with the slide off roof height.

Will I encounter any problems parking the mount with both axes close to horizontal. Advice appreciated or some photos of other park position setups.

Secondly, is the following the correct order of steps to undertake before using as well as creating tpoint models and doing PEC: home, rough polar align, synch, precise polar align then park.

Apologies for sounding a bit dense but a lot of the manual is unclear to me and this is the most sophisticated bit of kit I have ever had and I'm determined to get it right.

Cheers

Mark

[pluck]

Originally Posted by roughy

All the necessary hardware has now arrived to enable me to setup up the PMX and telescopes in the observatory this coming weekend. I will be setting up two scopes side by side.

I was wondering if I may ask what to some may seem the obvious but I would appreciate achieving some clarity.

Firstly, park position. My observatory is easily large enough for this mount and scopes except the slide off roof height. I will not be able to open or close it with the mount in the home position. Page 26 of the manual seems to indicate that he RA axis can be parked close to horizontal (counterweights below horizontal) but the scopes must be pointing above an arc running east to west thought the pole. This too, may pose a problem with the slide off roof height.

Will I encounter any problems parking the mount with both axes close to horizontal. Advice appreciated or some photos of other park position setups.

Secondly, is the following the correct order of steps to undertake before using as well as creating tpoint models and doing PEC: home, rough polar align, synch, precise polar align then park.

Apologies for sounding a bit dense but a lot of the manual is unclear to me and this is the most sophisticated bit of kit I have ever had and I'm determined to get it right.

Cheers

Mark

What's your OTA? You might be able to park with the telescope facing low in the east (say, 5 degrees above the horizon) and clear the roof? Either way it will make more sense when you have the scope mounted, and will be very easy to find an appropriate park position.

The steps to set up a paramount are, roughly, home, synch and tpoint. Start with relatively small samples of points to get polar alignment in order. Once polar alignment is done, a big model to set up more precise pointing and protrack can be done (for a fixed telescope in an observatory). PEC is not related at all to 'getting up and running' with the paramount. My advice is to leave PEC as a separate, future 'project', as you'll have your hands more than full getting used to the idiosyncrasies of TheSkyX and the Paramount.

Tip: make sure you have your OTA and image train locked down and finalised before you start your big modelling.

Good luck.

Paul

[gregbradley]

I use both PMX and PME mounts. My CDK17 is quite tall so I usually set the park position so it is almost horizontal.

Park position is almost unimportant with a PMX/PME as you home the mount every time you start it up anyway. So the main reason for using park of keeping the orientation of the mount is pointless.

I often hand slew to a point where the scope clearly is below the roof line and turn it off.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Its a slightly different start up with PMX as per its manual. You do a quick polar alignment first.

Greg.

[frolinmod]

In regards to that first initial set up after having transported the mount, the only difference between the PMX and the PME is that the PMX has an optional polar scope available for those that like to use them.

You can do a "quick polar alignment" with a PME exactly the same as you can with a PMX. No difference there. I do it every time I transport my PME. It gets me roughly within about six arc-minutes of the pole every time. Two or three short automated Tpoint runs get me the rest of the way there.

Daily startup of the PMX is no different than the PME. You just turn it on, home it and go.

I transport my PME so often that I'm getting a serious case of PMX envy.

[gregbradley]

PMX is a great mount but PME is still better.

Greg.