Paramount MX User Guide
22 |
P a g e
Partial clouds or twilight can make this task more difficult than it might seem. The Paramount
MX can be synchronized to virtually any position on the celestial sphere on the east or west side
of the meridian (See “Best Synchronization Practice” on page 21).
6.
Center the bright star in the eyepiece, photo or video display using the joystick on the hand
controller or
TheSkyX Professional Edition’s
Motion Controls
on the
Telescope
window.
7.
TheSkyX Professional Edition
, enter the name of the bright star in the
Search For
text box and
click the
Find
button on the
Telescope
window to identify the star. Or, click on the star if it is
visible on the Sky Chart.
8.
Choose the
Synchronize
command on the
Start Up
pop-up menu in
Telescope
tab. When the
Telescope Synchronization
window appears, click the
Sync
button.
The mount is now synchronized on the bright star.
Session to Session Pointing Repeatability
In subsequent observing sessions,
TheSkyX Professional Edition
computes the current equatorial and
horizon coordinates of the telescope using the stored hour angle and declination of the mount and the
local sidereal time. In fact, the Paramount MX’s pointing accuracy should be virtually identical from
session to session.
Please verify the
repeatability
of the Paramount MX pointing before proceeding:
1.
Turn the mount off.
2.
Turn the mount on.
3.
Home the mount (this terminates communication between
TheSkyX Professional Edition
and the
Paramount MX
).
4.
From
TheSkyX Professional Edition
, choose the
Connect
command from the
Telescope
menu.
The telescope cross hairs appear at the
relative home position
(see page 101 for an explanation
of the difference between the absolute and relative home position).
5.
Slew the mount to the star you just synced on. The mount should slew back to this star; that is,
it should return to the same position in the eyepiece, video or CCD detector. In practice, there
may be small pointing errors that are introduced by mirror flop, or slight differences in time, so
the star may not be in
exactly
the same position, but it should be very close.
Note that during the process of polar alignment, you will be required to synchronize the mount several
times (each time the mount is adjusted to a new altitude and/or azimuth). For permanent installations,
once the mount is sufficiently aligned with the celestial pole, it should not have to be synchronized again
unless the optical tube assembly or the telescope’s physical mounting changes.
Portable setups must synchronize the mount each session.
Making Sure Synchronization Is Correct
The first step to ensure the Paramount MX is properly synchronized is to look at the hour angle and the
declination of the homing sensors
reported by TheSkyX Professional Edition
.
