hello to the group. I expect to receive my (secondhand) AP1200 GTO late next week, and I can barely wait. :-) Reading through the GTO keypad manual, I ran across this statement on page 15: "Your latit

I recently purchased a 16"-tall length of 10"-diameter pier tube from AP. Essentially it is the top 16 inches of one of the AP portable piers. Inside are three circular pieces of 1" square aluminum tu

Dennis Persyk wrote: This photo might help: <http://astronomy.mdodd.com/observatory.html#Telescope> The 12" concrete pier has four 1/2" threaded rods protruding from its top. A flat plate made of Cori

Chris Curran wrote: I don't have a steel plate -- the plate on top of the concrete pier is made of Corian. Mike ----- Mike Dodd Montpelier, VA USA http://astronomy.mdodd.com

Mike Dodd wrote: I added two photos to the page that may help to illustrate my idea. Check out: <http://astronomy.mdodd.com/observatory.html#PierTube> Mike ----- Mike Dodd Montpelier, VA USA http://as

tucstargzr wrote: I believe you misunderstood what I'm trying to do. Indeed, I plan to support the entire bottom surface of the pier tube on the flat plate. As I explained, the tube will sit around al

Dennis Persyk wrote: Thanks, Dennis. I have no problem in replacing the Corian plate with one made of steel. I'll call a metalworking shop in the morning and get a quote. regarding steel versus alumin

Jeff wrote: Thanks, Jeff. We must have ESP! I was just out in the observatory measuring the bolt pattern and the thought occurred to me that I could eliminate the pier tube entirely. All I need to do

Jeff wrote: If I believe the AP documentation on the SPA, I shouldn't need a flat surface adapter. It specifically says that the SPA can be mounted with bolts through the top. It says: << you can use

Richard Seavey wrote: Thanks. I just received an e-mail from the AP1200 seller, and he confirms the SPA is solid. And I made a drawing in Adobe Illustrator that shows the four threaded rods in my conc

Here's a photo showing the current plan to mount the SPA directly to the top of the four threaded rods in my concrete pier: <http://astronomy.mdodd.com/observatory.html#PierAdapter> An Adobe Illustrat

In fact, the bolts turned out to be in exactly the RIGHT spot for the SPA. I received my AP1200 yesterday (YAY!), and installed the SPA on the concrete pier today. I drilled and counterbored four hole

My AP1200 is installed on the concrete pier, and I took it for its first run tonight (clouds and all). Prior to powering-up the mount, I set it up in the Park 1 position with an accuracy of better tha

My recently-acquired AP1200 is now installed in the observatory, and I've had a chance to check it out with the ACP automation software. I am EXTREMELY impressed! After a slew to almost any part of th

Richard Kinsey wrote: N-S hemisphere switch set to Southern? According to the keypad docs, "...both axes to be level with the ground with the telescope on the west side of the mount and pointing at th

Gerald Sargent wrote: You should determine that for yourself experimentally. Take an image, then press the left or right direction key to move the scope on the RA axis. Which direction to do star move

Dave wrote: You can use the free Dimension 4 <http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/index.htm> to synchronize the PC's clock with an NTP time server. The ASCOM driver will send the computer's time to the

How many "buckets" (bins, slots) does the GTOCP3 use to store PE correction data over one worm cycle? I'm just curious -- the more buckets, the higher the correction resolution. I was astounded at how

aaeejmh wrote: Wow, that's great. That's 11X the number of buckets that were used in another mount I owned. Thanks very much. Mike ----- Mike Dodd Montpelier, VA USA http://astronomy.mdodd.com

kerrywaz1 wrote: Try these AP links: <http://www.astro-physics.com/tech_support/mounts/latitude-dimension-calc2.xls> <http://www.astro-physics.com/tech_support/mounts/1200gto/1200latitude.pdf>