setting circles

[BB (Brendan)]

Hi, I am new to astronomy and i was wondering about setting circles for dob telescopes. I would be interested to hear from anyone on what people are using and if anyone use digital setting circles on dobs as well. I have a Meade 10" lightbridge and think they might life a bit easier


Thanks

[chrisp9au (Chris)]

Hi Brendan,

Try the following link: http://settingcircles.robertwillett.com:8000/

Rob Willett's site allows you to design and print your own setting circles to whatever size you like.

Cheers
Chris

[JethroB76 (Jeff)]

I quite successfully used setting circles on my lightbridge a while back. I had a printed azimuth scale on the base and a "Wixey" branded digital angle finder on the tube for my altitude - combined witha laptop running either cartes du ceil or RTGUI.
Do a search of the forum here and you should find a few threads on this topic.

[gary]

Originally Posted by BB

Hi, I am new to astronomy and i was wondering about setting circles for dob telescopes. I would be interested to hear from anyone on what people are using and if anyone use digital setting circles on dobs as well. I have a Meade 10" lightbridge and think they might life a bit easier


Thanks

Hi Brendan,

Great to hear you have taken up astronomy.

You might be interested to learn that the Argo Navis Digital Telescope Computer (DTC)
is designed and manufactured right here in Australia. There are large numbers
of these installed on Dobs all around the world, ranging in apertures of 6"
to 48".

See http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au

Some images can be found here -
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au/gallery.html

We also stock an encoder installation kit for the Meade LightBridge 10".
See http://www.wildcard-innovations.com...._describe.html

There is an Argo Navis sticky thread on the Equipment section of this forum here -
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=35708

The Argo Navis User's Group is hosted on Yahoo here -
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/argo_navis_dtc/

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

[bojan]

Hi Brendan,
If your budget is tight and/or you prefer to build your stuff yourself (like many of us amateurs do), you might find this webpage interesting..
http://www.bbastrodesigns.com/BBAstroDesigns.html

While mainly it is about motorisation of dobsonians (however, this software supports eq mounts as well), you will find information on electronic setting circles (made out of old, mechanical serial mice) which this software supports in full.
http://www.bbastrodesigns.com/LarryS...Invention.html
With something like this, you can couple your scope with star chart programs (like Cartes du Ciel, freeware)

I build my encoders using mechanical mice guts, interface is David EK' box, information is here:
http://eksfiles.net/digital-setting-circles/
and here:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/a...se.php?a=65266
and here:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=54549


Also, try to search this forum for DIY encoders etc, many people presented wonderful technical solutions for this problem (Kinetic, for example)
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=51290