Thanks Don, I think I will try initial in house testing. I was concerned whether the PAS reticle is a virtual image that would not project onto the CCD chip in the guide camera. I was hoping to avoid

That's TERRIFIC !!! Thanks Mark, I was really hoping somebody had already proved the possibility of it's working. If you can, perhaps a few pictures of your PAS set up on the AP group site would be he

Thanks Don and Hank, Don, you bring up an important point. This will save me a lot of time in experimentation. Joe

Hi Danny, Actually, I considered it - well, sort of. In order to make the AZ-EL adjustments repeatable or resettable after a field trip, I got hold of a small digital counter which I had planned to at

Hi Morgan, I did pretty much the same thing as you, but in the middle of my back yard lawn. First, I made myself a "LASER ALTIMETER" :-) Well that is what I laughingly call it - so I could determine t

Thanks for the further info, Mark. I agree with you that ths should be a product by somebody in the telescope business - AP? As a matter of fact, with the encouragement of your obvious success using i

Roland ... excellent and reassuring description. Just like Anthony earlier, I also saved your post as a separate text file to my AP folder, for future reference. This is definitely - another keeper. J

Hi Rolando, I too was a bit confused, but let that slip. Now I am really confused. I understand your method and the explanation is clear, but I don't get the "initial conditions". Was the main OTA (wi

Hi Rick, In the Orthogonally section of the latest GTO Keypad manual, it states that: "especially in GEM mounts, a non-orthogonal mount will cause errors in ANY routine that uses the scope for polar a

Of course - NOW I see it - thanks Chuck. In essence, adjusting the "finder set screws" to make it orthogonal, is just like adding shims to the OTA for the same reason. So, if I can't get the mount ali

Bien sur, Roland, et merci. That's what I eventually figured you were doing. Joe

Hi Geert, I agree, all ring mounts should be made that way. However, there is one work around, that Roland & Howard described recently on this group. If you can get your guide scope as close to parall

Hi everyone, Just to close off this idea, I wanted to say that my test for this was a failure. I painted the hook with "green luminous fishing lure paint", and found that the glow only lasts about 5 m

Hi Dean. F.Y.I. In the olden days of mainframes and minicomputers, serial cables were commonly sold upto a maximum 25 foot standard length, at 1200 baud I believe, because that was just about the "lim

Hi Mark, Have you, or anyone else here, tried spraying "contact cleaner" into the panel DC socket and plug? Also, double check the tightness of the panel lock nut on the power cord. If loose, a bit of

Hi Rolando, Thanks for clearing this up. I watched your American debates from here in Canada, and thought that Obama's "cheap shot" was about an old technology "overhead projector" - which sounded val

Thanks Howard, That puts a different light on the matter. I guess it was me having a senior moment instead, and lost track of who was speaking in the debates, at the time. This now makes perfect sense

Hi, If I can add my 2 cents - have you tried swapping the motor cable ends - let the DEC motor run as RA, and see if it will slew. Maybe the RA cable connector got pulled too hard and is damaged, or m

Hi Jeff, While I agree that a DMM might be helpful, I wonder if a continuity test is sufficient. If the RA cable was snagged, and one of the wires was strained enough to pull "partially" out of its so

Hi Chris, I wonder if it was a Y-cable seating problem, etc. When you removed the Y-cable for inspection, and put it back on, you might have solved the problem, or at least temporarily. If so, I would