I am guessing the difference would be if tracking was stopped or not. "My advice is always free and worth every penny!" -Christopher Erickson Observatory Engineer Summit Kinetics Waikoloa, Hawaii Viru

Strange. Wouldn't "Park at current position" and "Disconnect without parking" be exactly the same thing with an AP CP2/3/4/5 controller? "My advice is always free and worth every penny!" -Christopher

ABOUT TIME SKY SAFARI GOT PARK 3! YAY!!! I can FINALLY start recommending Sky Safari to people again. It only took YEARS for them to get this fixed. "My advice is always free and worth every penny!" -

The somewhat mysterious and mostly undocumented meridian safety limits in the CP4 firmware will turn the CP4 light amber, but so will a motor stall, low power situation, a motor cable problem, a motor

That is one thing I neglected to mention. A safety stop on the upper-end of the dovetail bar. Thanks for the reminder Joe. I like to use the Losmandy DVA D-style ring bases (or an ADM DPA-D + "Rosette

Here are some rambling musings of an equipment addict and observatory engineer. FWIW. All of my OTA's have permanent dovetail bars on them. Additionally, all of them also have handles or bars on top o

Virtually all soils, locations and environments are unique. Earthquakes, frost heaves, settling, moisture saturation, slope erosion, water table level, etc. all happen. Here in Hawaii, the younger vol

My G11 + Gemini-II happens to be set up inside my house right now and I don't see a manual meridian flip button or command in the menu tree. I guess it's time to triple-check it and find what I have o

It is a straight-through run that is fully isolated from the mount frame, as it should be. It has no internal fusing. That wouldn't be a bad thing to add. My memory is a bit faded but IIRC, it is 14 g

#Mach2GTO

Good grief. I have all of the following non-AP GOTO GEM mounts and NOT ONE of them has a "pier flip" button or menu command in the hand controller. Rainbow Astro RST-135 + Hubo-i SE Losmandy G11 + Gem

There must be some communications failures going on here. I currently have seventeen mounts/scopes using nine different GOTO systems and AFAICT, not one of them has a "do a meridian flip" button or me

I would worry more about load instability on an unlevel tripod than polar alignment accuracy. Having the RAPAS rotated ever-so-slightly will still give you a rather precise polar alignment. And if you

Personally I would put a 1600 or 1200 under that scope. -Christopher Erickson Observatory engineer Waikoloa, HI 96738 www.summitkinetics.com

#Mach2GTO

There are some safety limits in the CP4 that could have a bug in some firmware revs that look like a motor stall but aren't. Make sure to be using the latest firmware rev. -Christopher Erickson Observ

I have a machine shop... However a long ADM dovetail bar combined with one or two ADM dovetail brackets and one or two XY stage dovetail brackets, combined with a drill press and some bits, 1/4-20 or

I think it will be fine as a fun experiment. It won't be as rigid as it was before, but that's to be expected. And if you don't like the setup enough to make it a permanent solution, you can always ea

Yea, I opted for a C14 over an M14 because it is so much lighter, thermally stabilizes faster, and I have a Hyperstar for it. I have a Meade 16 as well and I have been considering taking it out of the

I would put a tandem bar on top of the mount and the two scopes side by side. I have done that with a C14 and a 130EDF-GT with good results. ADM has tandem bars. Don't be tempted to put a guider on th

Congratulations!

IIRC, there IS a UN committee that works on international treaties about space activities. Before that there were space treaties between the USA and USSR. Then the EU got in the game. Then India, Chin