New addition to the family ... has arrived!

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

that looks spectacular Marcus This shot must make you beam (makes me green )

Have to say though..those 6" OTA rings look positively rediculous on that glossy crimson monster

Mike

Not ridiculous ... just petite!! Maybe an ODK 16" would look better??

And yep, got a pretty good grin going on here!

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Need to be at least 10" OTA rings

Gotta be in proportion....gotta be in proportion

Is this peer pressure?! Well, OK then, I'll order that ODK tomorrow!

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

I've finished and tested my cabling and put my TOA back where it should be!! Wooo hooo!! See the new pictures at the bottom of http://www.pbase.com/gailmarc/paramount_me

I now just need to make sure everything works together and do the remaining setup: new dome geometry, polar alignment, PEC training, and large TPoint model - there's a couple of nights work right there!

Cheers, Marcus

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Looks very schmick! ...bet you have spent a few moments here and there just staring at them with a mixture of elation and disbelief.?

...and with a big on your face.

Mike

[DavidU (Dave)]

That thing is HUGE. Congrats.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Looks very schmick! ...bet you have spent a few moments here and there just staring at them with a mixture of elation and disbelief.?

...and with a big on your face.

Mike

Hehehe ... Nah, don't stare at the photos, I prefer to walk out to the obs, make myself comfortable and stare in person!

Originally Posted by DavidU

That thing is HUGE. Congrats.

Thanks Dave. It's only about 5cm taller than my old EM-400 (mostly because of the saddle plates). It's definitely wider and bulkier though but there's still tons of room in the obs to get around.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

With Mike's new AG and my new PME cloudless nights have been rare!! In the last 10 days I've only managed 1.5 nights. The good news is at least I've managed to get my polar alignment looking pretty good. Have a look at the screen grab of the 52 star model down the bottom of http://upload.pbase.com/gailmarc/paramount_me .

RMS pointing is down to 15.7 arcsecs for the whole sky (between 35 and 85 degrees altitude) and polar alignment is within 10 arcsecs in azimuth and 25 arcsecs or so of the refracted pole in altitude (nominally around 75 arcsecs above the true pole for my location). The sigma values are low too so confidence in the alignment is high. I still need to do my final 250-300 star model but I'll probably use TheSkyX with its "super model" function rather than TheSky6.

I also did a PEC curve with the result being 5 arcsecs peak to peak before correction - not too shabby! I haven't yet measured the corrected PE.

Cheers, Marcus

[renormalised (Carl)]

Looks like it's aligning very well...might be lucky to hit the pole spot on

[Doomsayer]

Looks great! The PME will not work up a sweat with that OTA.

Looking at your Tpoint model it looks like you are using way too many extra terms. But I'm sure you'll refine all of that once you get more time.
I re-did my PEC recently and found a similar PE - corrected the PE is 0.4

guy

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by Doomsayer

Looks great! The PME will not work up a sweat with that OTA.

Looking at your Tpoint model it looks like you are using way too many extra terms. But I'm sure you'll refine all of that once you get more time.
I re-did my PEC recently and found a similar PE - corrected the PE is 0.4

guy

Yeah, I thought that too, but they say 6 to 8 extra terms is normal and before I added a term I made sure there was at least a 20% improvement in RMS AND PSD. I'm at the limit now though, at least until I acquire a denser model (250-300 stars). It's also true that 14 terms is stretching it for a 50 star model, but it was required (and is recommended) to reduce the polar alignment errors to a low sigma (=high confidence). It will be interesting to see what TheSkyX's "super model" does!

Cheers, Marcus

[David Fitz-Henr]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

RMS pointing is down to 15.7 arcsecs for the whole sky (between 35 and 85 degrees altitude) and polar alignment is within 10 arcsecs in azimuth and 25 arcsecs or so of the refracted pole in altitude (nominally around 75 arcsecs above the true pole for my location).

OMG, No, no, no Marcus!!! The refracted pole is nominally over 80 arc seconds above the true pole for your location!!! This means that your alignment may be too low by over 30 arc seconds!!!

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by David Fitz-Henr

OMG, No, no, no Marcus!!! The refracted pole is nominally over 80 arc seconds above the true pole for your location!!! This means that your alignment may be too low by over 30 arc seconds!!!

Yes, good pickup David! In fact it's probably around 85 arcsecs so I guess my PA is waaaaay off . Some folks say it's better to split the difference anyway and place the altitude between the true and refracted pole ... so ... errr ... that was my plan all along, so I'm spot on!!

[David Fitz-Henr]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Some folks say it's better to split the difference anyway and place the altitude between the true and refracted pole ... so ... errr ... that was my plan all along, so I'm spot on!!

Ahh, of course, I should have realised!! There are no flies on you, Marcus - only the odd palm print on your objective lens