Thanks Steve!

Yes, the replacement ASCOM driver (which I am also working on) is intended to
work with this Control Center.

-Ray

Nice Moon Ray. Is this the replacement driver as well?



Steve





From: ap-gto@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ap-gto@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Ray Gralak
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 10:31 PM
To: ap-gto@yahoogroups.com; ap-ug@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ap-gto] A quick image of moon



It was a very transparent evening last night so I started initial testing of
different user interface layouts for the upcoming replacement program for
PulseGuide (so far it is named the "AP Control Center").

While doing that the moon looked so nice from my backyard that I drug out my
Canon 1D Mark III and took a few shots through Traveler with 2x AP barlow
mounted on my AP1200GTO. Seeing was a little wavy but all of the shots
turned
out fine. Here is one of them (1/30th second exposure, ISO 100):

http://www.gralak.com/Astro/Moon-07-22-2007.jpg

-Ray Gralak

It was a very transparent evening last night so I started initial testing of
different user interface layouts for the upcoming replacement program for
PulseGuide (so far it is named the "AP Control Center").

While doing that the moon looked so nice from my backyard that I drug out my
Canon 1D Mark III and took a few shots through Traveler with 2x AP barlow
mounted on my AP1200GTO. Seeing was a little wavy but all of the shots turned
out fine. Here is one of them (1/30th second exposure, ISO 100):

http://www.gralak.com/Astro/Moon-07-22-2007.jpg

-Ray Gralak

--- In ap-gto@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Wiggins" <rickwiggins@...> wrote:

Hi Richard,
Very nice work! Seems the problems with filters just
continue...almost like protoytpes are not well tested.
Rick

thanks Rick,

someone once told me that when things work out as planned you haven't
learned anything. when they don't there's a chance for learning.

it seems that just about anything these days turns into a "project",
but that's just another aspect of the hobby that I enjoy.

Since I had originally suggested using square filters as a cost
reduction scheme for these larger sensors, I have an interest in
seeing the idea to its logical conclusion so I am happy that this
issue was resolved so quickly and for zero additional cost.

Patrick,

Spending time making the OTA orthogonal is time well spent. I took a
lot of time investing in T-Point etc. But finally, I took several
nights shimming my OTA (a C9.25) on a losmandy dovetail attached to
my AP900. It took some time to get right, but now I don't really
even need T-Point much anymore. Objects are on the chip on either
side of the meridian.


--- In ap-gto@yahoogroups.com, "Astrodude" <dude@...> wrote:

Thank you all, looks like I will be spending more time making the
scope orthoganal to the mount.

Dark Skies,

Patrick Harrold
http://www.astrodude.com

--- In ap-gto@yahoogroups.com, chris1011@ wrote:

In a message dated 7/23/2007 11:53:14 AM Central Daylight Time,
dude@ writes:

Is there a time that I may have recalibrated too many times

that

I

would have to do a new alignment?

You can recal any number of times. All this does is to establish

the present

position as the new position for GoTo to the next object.

Roland Christen


**************************************
Get a sneak peek of the
all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thank you all, looks like I will be spending more time making the
scope orthoganal to the mount.

Dark Skies,

Patrick Harrold
http://www.astrodude.com

--- In ap-gto@yahoogroups.com, chris1011@... wrote:

In a message dated 7/23/2007 11:53:14 AM Central Daylight Time,
dude@... writes:

Is there a time that I may have recalibrated too many times that

I

would have to do a new alignment?

You can recal any number of times. All this does is to establish

the present

position as the new position for GoTo to the next object.

Roland Christen


**************************************
Get a sneak peek of the
all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Patrick, I believe the manual indicates that pointing accuracy is dependent on orthogonality so you could follow those instructions to ensure your OTA is orthogonal to the mount axes.

Stuart
============================================================
From: "Astrodude" <dude@astrodude.com>
Date: 2007/07/23 Mon AM 10:20:24 EDT
To: ap-gto@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ap-gto] New AP Owner (AP900GTO CP2)

All,

I have owned my 900GTO for about three or four months now and have
resisted asking questions because I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing
something really stupid and then telling the world.

I am permentaly mounted, balanced, fully powered and aligned. I have
been drift aligning for the last three nights. My question is after I
have what I believe very good polar alignment what should I do to
improve pointing accuracy. Should I redo an alignment routine? I have
been doing the recalibrate but I was hoping for better accuracy without
having to recal in new parts of the sky.

Dark Skies,

Patrick Harrold
http://www.astrodude.com


============================================================

Hi Richard,
Very nice work! Seems the problems with filters just
continue...almost like protoytpes are not well tested.
Rick

--- In ap-gto@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Crisp" <rdcrisp@...> wrote:

Late last week I was asked if I could help identify the root cause

of some anomalies observed in some flat fields taken using some
square emission line filters.

as it turns out some of the square emission line filters when used

in the CFW4-5 have an unprotected edge that can cause spurious
reflections. There are a number of ways to address the issue but a
simple one is to install the filter wheel carousel upside down. That
will require inverting the drive sprocket too but that's simple
enough as well.

here is a writeup of my findings and some before and after images

and photos of what was done

http://www.narrowbandimaging.com/square_flat_anomalies_page.htm



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I ran across a picture yesterday of an AP600E with a polar scope which
protruded from the back a bit more than the current model, and had a
button-cell illuminator (the kind where the batteries are in a tube
with the illuminator at the end, similar to most wireless reticle
eyepieces).

Anyone know if this (I assume older?) polar scope had the same
illuminator threads? I've checked my Tak finderscope and Lumicon
illuminated reticle, but they both use much larger threads.

I assume the Rigel Pulseguide also has the bigger threads? Can anyone
confirm?

I'd really like not to have to fuss with all the wires and the keypad
for illumination control....

-- Jeff.

In a message dated 7/23/2007 11:53:14 AM Central Daylight Time,
dude@astrodude.com writes:

Is there a time that I may have recalibrated too many times that I
would have to do a new alignment?

You can recal any number of times. All this does is to establish the present
position as the new position for GoTo to the next object.

Roland Christen


**************************************
Get a sneak peek of the
all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour

Hello Ruben!

If you do have an inbuild USB port, I do suggest using an external
USB-to-Serial adapter. This gives you a solid connection. PCMCIA
adapters are very "flat", the mechanical stability of any connectors
to them is not reliable - I assume the power consumption will be
higher, too.
With an external USB-to-Serial adapter, you might use a long USB
expansion cable for the "long" conection between laptop and mount and
place the USB-to-Serial adapter directly at the mount. The USB
expansion cable will be less heavy than a full-connected serial cable
and you might also use it (with an additional USB hub near the
mouint) to connect other devices like a webcam tp your laptop.
I do vote for USB instead of PCMCIA.

Greetings, Harry

Windows-Powered-AP-900GTO-mounted telescope and astro-camera

--- In ap-gto@yahoogroups.com, "stardoctor5" <stardoctor5@...> wrote:

I have seen some adapters that use the PCMIA slot instead of a USB
slot. Does anyone have experience with these? Should these be
better or worse? I think they would be less likely to be pulled

out

accidently.

Ruben

--- In ap-gto@yahoogroups.com, "Bert Katzung" <katzung1@> wrote:

Hi Wade:

I have an Edgeport USB to serial

hub and it works perfectly.
Bert

katzung1@
www.astronomy-images.com
www.visionlightgallery.com/katzung/

----- Original Message -----
From: "twade35" <twade35@>
To: <ap-gto@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2007 3:04 PM
Subject: [ap-gto] Controlling 900GTO Mount without a Serial Port

I recently purchased a laptop which unfortunately has no serial

ports.

Is it possible to use a USB to Serial Port cable with a 900GTO

mount?

Thanks,

Wade



To UNSUBSCRIBE, or for general information on the ap-gto list
see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ap-gto
Yahoo! Groups Links

Rolando,

Thank you for the reply I will start looking at the orthogonal issue
more closely.

BTW, my setup is a Tak FSQ with an SBIG ST2000XM/CFW8a and for
alignment I use a 12mm reticled eypiece with a TV Powermate 5x. I
do image at both F/5 and F/8. I also have the 7x50 Tak finder.

Typically, the object I would GOTO would be about 1/3 FOV out from
center in the finder and this is pretty consistant. Not hard to
center from there but I wouldn't complain if I could improve the
pointing. As for imaging the mount is outstanding. My guiding
error is roughly X +-.2 and Y +-.1. This is without PEC turned on.
I will eventually train the PEC and turn it on when I have really
fine tuned the alignment.

Is there a time that I may have recalibrated too many times that I
would have to do a new alignment?

Dark Skies,

Patrick Harrold
http://www.astrodude.com

--- In ap-gto@yahoogroups.com, chris1011@... wrote:

In a message dated 7/23/2007 10:10:52 AM Central Daylight Time,
dude@... writes:

I am permentaly mounted, balanced, fully powered and aligned. I

have

been drift aligning for the last three nights. My question is

after I

have what I believe very good polar alignment what should I do

to

improve pointing accuracy. Should I redo an alignment routine? I

have

been doing the recalibrate but I was hoping for better accuracy

without

having to recal in new parts of the sky.

Your pointing accuracy will depend on how orthogonal your scope

is. For each

1 degree that the scope points optically off from the mechanical

axis, you

will be off by 2 degrees when the scope does a meridian flip. If

your scope has

wide-field, then the object will always be somewhere in the field

of view, but

never centered. If you have a long focus scope, then obviously the

object will

be out of the field of view. No matter which mount you buy, this

will always

be the case. Therefore, to solve this problem, you would either

align the

optical axis of your scope with the mechanical axis, or you would

use external

software such as T-Point to do it for you. Even with perfect polar

alignment, you

can never have perfect GoTo without some software intervention,

because the

sky itself is distorted by the atmosphere.

At this point, we do not have software for the keypad to do this

function,

but we are working at it. We probably will have it later this

year, perhaps

earlier for beta testing.

One other thing: scopes such as large SCTs present more

complexities to the

pointing issue because their internal optical path shifts around

randomly due

to the way they are constructed. Therefore you may have problems

even with

T-Point to get the system to always point exactly. Therefore you

may have to use

the Rcal function to center the object even though you are using T-

Point or a

similar software solution.

Rolando


**************************************
Get a sneak peek of the all-new
AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Kent,

Thank you for replying, and yes the drift aligning has served me
very well for imaging. It is just that I have to recal once I GOTO
an object. My imaging setup is a Tak FSQ with a SBIG ST2000/CFW8a.
I run it both in F5 and F8. To drift align I use a 12mm reticled
eyepiece with a TV Powermate 5x. I will have to look into the
orothogonal issue as that may be my problem.

Dark Skies,

Patrick Harrold
http://www.astrodude.com

Patrick:
If you have been 'drift aligning' for 'the last three nights' I

doubt you

need to do anything else.

A really good drift alignment over several nights should serve you

well for

imaging exposures out to several hours and, if visual, way beyond

what is

required.

Kent Kirkley

I also changed mine recently, both on the AP1200 and AP400 as the former is now 8 years old.
I had the mount powered and also noticed a reset noise when the old battery came out, but everything looks fine.

Is the resetting normal behaviour? I wasn't expecting it, as the power to the hand controller came from the mount. I am asking because both my handsets frequently reset during normal use and have tried the usual tricks to eliminate it. Since I replaced the batteries, there have been no resets, so I do wonder. The remaining charge in both batteries was 3.23 and 3.27V

Adrian

chris1011@aol.com wrote:

obviously the square filter issue could be resolved by the filter makers spending more time and effort to better prepare the edges of their filters. That adds cost and cost increases that are unnecessary should be avoided in my way of thinking. That's what engineering is all about: making the best solution for the lowest cost.

The attractive thing about flipping over the carousel and using the bottom of the filter pocket for providing the edge exclusion is that it adds ZERO cost to the system. That is better in my way of thinking that having the carousel upright and the filters modified. There are five filters in the wheel and each has four edges that would require 'work'. It is a better optimization in my opinion to put the burden on the user to install the filters in such a way that doesn't cause a problem when that can be done at no additional cost and with virtually no additional work.

To me that's a great optimization that saves us all money including the people that are selling filters.

I still think it would be nice to have a stamped stainless steel "knife edge" that can be placed over the filters to retain them in the pocket and to provide a very nice and clean edge for the filter's aperture stop..... just in case anyone is listening.

obviously the square filter issue could be resolved by the filter makers spending more time and effort to better prepare the edges of their filters. That adds cost and cost increases that are unnecessary should be avoided in my way of thinking. That's what engineering is all about: making the best solution for the lowest cost.

The attractive thing about flipping over the carousel and using the bottom of the filter pocket for providing the edge exclusion is that it adds ZERO cost to the system. That is better in my way of thinking that having the carousel upright and the filters modified. There are five filters in the wheel and each has four edges that would require 'work'. It is a better optimization in my opinion to put the burden on the user to install the filters in such a way that doesn't cause a problem when that can be done at no additional cost and with virtually no additional work.

To me that's a great optimization that saves us all money including the people that are selling filters.

I still think it would be nice to have a stamped stainless steel "knife edge" that can be placed over the filters to retain them in the pocket and to provide a very nice and clean edge for the filter's aperture stop..... just in case anyone is listening.

obviously the square filter issue could be resolved by the filter makers spending more time and effort to better prepare the edges of their filters. That adds cost and cost increases that are unnecessary should be avoided in my way of thinking. That's what engineering is all about: making the best solution for the lowest cost.

The attractive thing about flipping over the carousel and using the bottom of the filter pocket for providing the edge exclusion is that it adds ZERO cost to the system. That is better in my way of thinking that having the carousel upright and the filters modified. There are five filters in the wheel and each has four edges that would require 'work'. It is a better optimization in my opinion to put the burden on the user to install the filters in such a way that doesn't cause a problem when that can be done at no additional cost and with virtually no additional work.

To me that's a great optimization that saves us all money including the people that are selling filters.

I still think it would be nice to have a stamped stainless steel "knife edge" that can be placed over the filters to retain them in the pocket and to provide a very nice and clean edge for the filter's aperture stop..... just in case anyone is listening.

All,

I have owned my 900GTO for about three or four months now and have
resisted asking questions because I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing
something really stupid and then telling the world.

I am permentaly mounted, balanced, fully powered and aligned. I have
been drift aligning for the last three nights. My question is after I
have what I believe very good polar alignment what should I do to
improve pointing accuracy. Should I redo an alignment routine? I have
been doing the recalibrate but I was hoping for better accuracy without
having to recal in new parts of the sky.

Dark Skies,

Patrick Harrold
http://www.astrodude.com

In a message dated 7/23/2007 11:43:45 AM Central Daylight Time,
dude@astrodude.com writes:

Kent,

Thank you for replying, and yes the drift aligning has served me
very well for imaging. It is just that I have to recal once I GOTO
an object. My imaging setup is a Tak FSQ with a SBIG ST2000/CFW8a.
I run it both in F5 and F8. To drift align I use a 12mm reticled
eyepiece with a TV Powermate 5x. I will have to look into the
orothogonal issue as that may be my problem.

Dark Skies,

Patrick Harrold


Patrick:
Probably.
When I used to do 45 minute to 1 hour film exposures with either Traveler or
155 I did careful drift alignment
with the 155 (1086mm fl). AP Barcon (2x) and 5mm Tak LG eyepiece.
When I began CCD imaging I ran a test where I used only my bore-sighted
Polar Alignment Scope and discovered that I didn't need to drift align with
subexposures of 45minutes.
The 1200GTO will put the object usually in the center of the STL-11000 chip,
but sometimes Recal is necessary.....probably an orthogonal issue too.

Kent Kirkley



************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
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In a message dated 7/23/2007 10:10:52 AM Central Daylight Time,
dude@astrodude.com writes:

I am permentaly mounted, balanced, fully powered and aligned. I have
been drift aligning for the last three nights. My question is after I
have what I believe very good polar alignment what should I do to
improve pointing accuracy. Should I redo an alignment routine? I have
been doing the recalibrate but I was hoping for better accuracy without
having to recal in new parts of the sky.

Your pointing accuracy will depend on how orthogonal your scope is. For each
1 degree that the scope points optically off from the mechanical axis, you
will be off by 2 degrees when the scope does a meridian flip. If your scope has
wide-field, then the object will always be somewhere in the field of view, but
never centered. If you have a long focus scope, then obviously the object will
be out of the field of view. No matter which mount you buy, this will always
be the case. Therefore, to solve this problem, you would either align the
optical axis of your scope with the mechanical axis, or you would use external
software such as T-Point to do it for you. Even with perfect polar alignment, you
can never have perfect GoTo without some software intervention, because the
sky itself is distorted by the atmosphere.

At this point, we do not have software for the keypad to do this function,
but we are working at it. We probably will have it later this year, perhaps
earlier for beta testing.

One other thing: scopes such as large SCTs present more complexities to the
pointing issue because their internal optical path shifts around randomly due
to the way they are constructed. Therefore you may have problems even with
T-Point to get the system to always point exactly. Therefore you may have to use
the Rcal function to center the object even though you are using T-Point or a
similar software solution.

Rolando


**************************************
Get a sneak peek of the all-new
AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour