Yes lift her out by her feet and give her a short couple of smacks on the back, if she cries she's yours, if not... I will take her
That looks like a (big) thing of beauty mate, sheesh, the TOA will look like a kids fishing rod on her
Mike
Nah ... my TOA will look like a million bucks! It's big beastie for sure but surprisingly, 1cm shorter than my EM-400 (measured from the pier mounting plate). It's definitely much bulkier though.
And it will be ME crying if she doesn't spring to life when she gets some juice into her!
So ... have you had "first leptons" yet (ie. powered the thing on) ???
Don't rush me!!! . Don't really want to do anything until I balance it. When I get my tube ring adaptor (hopefully next week) I'll rig some weight to it to achieve that. I'm also waiting until I don't need to drive my EM-400 (when I finish imaging this month) so I can configure the laptop software as well to do Home and SH setup.
Marcus you can run the mount without the counter weight bar. You will find that you need to do this for changing the grease out every 6 to 12 months. There are several Youtube videos that will help with this.
What are you going to use for PEC? I am thinking of getting PemPro for that.
Mine did not come with Precision PEC. But I am thinking PemPro may be better??
After a minor setback with the mounting plate I got for my TOA rings not fitting as advertised (dovetail does not fit onto the PME's Versaplate (!!!)), I decided it was time to power her up.
I installed the software, powered up the mount, established connection, successfully homed and completed SH setup. After a couple of software slews I deemed bench testing successful!!
Expect to get the pier mounting plate in 2 weeks. The company I bought the faulty scope mounting plate from is being very responsive so hopefully the problem will be rectified before too long!
Last edited by marc4darkskies; 05-02-2011 at 04:28 PM.
What do you plan to use for PEC? The manual plays down the PEC training available in the Sky.
Pempro gets a good rap.
Greg.
I'll try TheSky training first and see what it does. IMO, for high end mounts, PEC isn't that critical anyway. (Never had it for my EM-400 and look at the results I get). Of course, it may be more important at longer FLs but I'm still imaging at or below 1760mm and my EM-400 has never had any trouble guiding out the smooth 6 arcsec P to P PE I get.
6 arc seconds - oh my God, I would freak out if my PE were that bad! hehehe.
I think mine with PEC running from the previous owner (which I erased to replace it) was more like 1 arc second.
Still, you need that U-beaut polar alignment.
I would als recommend using drift alignment to get real close rather than T-Point.
T-point has often recommended polar alignment changes that made autoguiding worse, sometimes better, often worse. That is with only about 8-10 mappings.
So I'd go quite a few mappings before I would implement its suggestions and stick with drift alignment to get it really close.
One important aspect of super accurate guiding is your images will be sharper as there is less shear/blur in the image from guide errors.
With your super sharp TOA150 although your guiding with the EM400 is superb, the PME is capable of considerably better and that has to mean sharper images and less reliance on your AOL.
Greg.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marc4darkskies
I'll try TheSky training first and see what it does. IMO, for high end mounts, PEC isn't that critical anyway. (Never had it for my EM-400 and look at the results I get). Of course, it may be more important at longer FLs but I'm still imaging at or below 1760mm and my EM-400 has never had any trouble guiding out the smooth 6 arcsec P to P PE I get.
Welcome to the PME brotherhood! I think I may have been the first PME owner in Oz and had to thrash out the SH problems with the Bisques... happily long since resolved. and am happy to say it has delivered years of trouble free and dead-nuts-accurate performance.
The one thing which will help your modeling and subsequent pointing accuracy is an accurate time base. There various ways of doing this, but I've found NMEA time to be the best. One second of time means 15 arc seconds of error...GPS time is within a few milliseconds of UTC with a cheap GPS effectively giving you atomic clock accuracy.
A 30-50 T-Point model is more than adequate. I found using a planetary web-cam and cross hair on my PC screen gave consistent modeling data (..err don't use a permanent marker )
Well, I'm still waiting for the pier mounting plate from Advanced Telescope Systems and the Casady scope adaptor plate was a dud - it didn't fit into the PME's dovetail!!! So, I decided to make my own - how hard can it be, right??
I got a piece of 20mm thick plate cut to 200x400mm (same width as the PME's Versa-Plate). I carefully measured and drilled 8 (2 sets of 4) 11mm countersunk holes to accept the M10 socket head bolts the TOA-150 rings need. The 2 sets of holes forward and rear allow grose balancing ability. There are also 14 1/4 - 20 threaded holes carefully measured to match the pattern on the Versa-Plate. This is enough to allow me to move it up and down the Versa-plate in small increments for balance. It will be attached to the Versa-Plate with 8 bolts.
There are advantages to a DIY bolted plate anyway. It's a more stable connection with 8 bolts and positive contact over a large area of the Versa-Plate. I can also modify it if need be too.
I received the pier adaptor from ATS (Advanced Telescope Systems) and attaced it to the pier. Once that was done I couldn't resist a preliminary installation of the PME. Once I get the cabling sorted I can commence final setup.
The overall height is just a bit higher than the EM-400 but the OTA is now actually at its optimum height. I.e. being able to observe near the northern horizon and just above the minimum dome slit height.
) thing of beauty mate, sheesh, the TOA will look like a kids fishing rod on her 
It's big beastie for sure but surprisingly, 1cm shorter than my EM-400 (measured from the pier mounting plate). It's definitely much bulkier though. 
and am happy to say it has delivered years of trouble free and dead-nuts-accurate performance.
So, I decided to make my own - how hard can it be, right??
) 
