Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Starkler
Do I win a prize  |
You win a chocolate chip Internet cookie.
I put all my gadgets through their paces tonight, and after a quick bit of fussing about with backlash settings, slew rates and directions I got the ServoCAT running real sweet.
Even with my limited view from the front yard severely restricting the choice of alignment stars (difference in AZ between the two stars was only ~30°, and one star's ALT was in the atmospheric refraction band of less than 20°) the Argo Navis got every object I slewed to inside a 13mm Nagler EP (0.5° FOV).
Using Cartes du Ciel to tell the ServoCAT where to go after clicking around the sky was impressive.
Using Astroplanner to slew to a list of bright NGC objects (my yard is very light polluted) in order of azimuth was downright cheating. It was so effortless to find things I felt guilty! The seeing was terrible compared to the last few nights though.
Astroplanner did crash (floating point divide by zero error) when I tried to map my horizon. I had just mapped the whole horizon and when I hit "OK" it crashed loosing the lot. I'll try this again another night.
Now that I have everything tested and am familiar with the set-up process (set-up time ~35min, tear down time ~20 min), I can't wait to get out somewhere really dark.
Oh boy am I tired though. Bed time now.
EDIT: I managed to merge the image of Jupiter in my Denkmeier Binoviewer too. The problem is that if any diopter adjustment is made to the left ep the holder sags slightly. This is not a problem for extended objects but makes viewing planets very difficult for me. Fortunately I can get by focusing on the left ep then only adjusting the right diopter. According to Russ at Denkmeier the diopter adjustment just needs a bit more grease.Not worth sending it back though as my workaround is adequate.
