Paramount MX User Guide
18 |
P a g e
Subsequent observing sessions use
TheSkyX Professional Edition
’s local sidereal time to determine the
mount’s equatorial coordinates. Make sure the computer’s clock is accurate (page 24).
Homing provides the following benefits.
•
Once a mount is aligned with the celestial pole and homed, extremely repeatable and accurate
pointing from night to night can be achieved using
TheSkyX Professional Edition
and the
TPoint
Add On
.
•
After homing, the mount “knows” its orientation and therefore cannot be slewed into the pier
(see “Software Slew Limits” on page 108).
•
The control system’s periodic error correction (PEC) uses this information to calibrate the
control system’s internal PEC table with the orientation of the worm gear.
•
The mount’s orientation can be restored after power outages or other communication
malfunctions.
•
The home position can be used to align the polar axis to the celestial pole (see “Quick Polar
Alignment Method” on page 65).
•
Once the mount is homed and a TPoint model is established, subsequent sessions require only
accurate time to achieve excellent pointing.
Labeling the Home Position
Synchronizing the mount (page 19) on the wrong star or configuring
TheSkyX Professional Edition
to use
the wrong location, date, time or time zone for your location means the Paramount MX will be “lost in
space”. The telescope cross hairs will appear in the “wrong” place on the Sky Chart and the mount will
apparently not slew to the correct coordinates when commanded to do so. If the coordinates of the
telescope cross hairs do not match the actual physical orientation of the Paramount MX, or it does not
slew to the correct coordinates, you will be scratching your head wondering what is wrong. The next
step is to post a support question asking, “Why is my mount pointing to the wrong coordinates?”
For this reason, Software Bisque strongly recommends creating a label that shows the location of the
mount’s
absolute home position
(page 101) directly on the Sky Chart to provide a constant visual
reminder of where the telescope cross hairs
must be
after finding home.
If, after homing the mount, the telescope cross hairs do not end up very near hour angle 2 and
declination 0 (or hour angle –2.0, declination 0 in the southern hemisphere), either
TheSkyX Professional
Edition’s
site information is wrong or the mount has been synchronized on the wrong star.
Remember, the
absolute home position
of the Paramount MX
cannot change
. So, if the mount’s
relative
home position
is wrong (or the telescope cross hairs do not appear in the correct location on the Sky
Chart), please double check the synchronization (page 19) and
TheSkyX Professional Edition’s
location,
date and time settings for your location before submitting support request.
To Label the Home Position
The following procedure assumes this is a first time mount synchronization.
1.
From
TheSkyX Professional Edition
, choose the
Location
command from the
Input
menu and
double check the settings on the
Custom
tab.
