Mesu/Sitech PXP model

[Fellside]

Hi

There have been a few mentions of the benefits of having a PXP sky model on the Sitech Yahoo forum recently so last night I thought I would give it a try.

It was pretty easy, just follow the manual.

I have already setup an horizon file and that is loaded by Sitech at startup. This needs to be fairly accurate as Sitech does send the Mesu right to the edge of what is visible above "your horizon"

The Sitech manual shows how generate the model from page 80. The Scripted PxP Operations procedure is from page 83.

There are three options for the camera operation software

MaxIm (at least 4.11)
AA4 (at least CCD GUI 4.40)
Nebulosity

I went for Nebulosity (trial version) as its use is mentioned in the manual. I did have a problem with Nebulosity dropping out of listening mode twice.

I was a bit ambitious for my first run as I selected 40 cal points. It stopped after 15 with the listening problem mentioned above.

I had also selected Plate solve 2 in Sitec and this was unable to solve a some of the images it was sent. Press stop in PS2 moves the script on to the next cal point.

On the third attempt I set Sitec to use Plate solver 3. This solved all the images it was sent, all in under 2 seconds. Very impressive. This built  a 25 point model. The minimum number of points is 16.

On the next good night I have I will try the script with AA4. Although I`m not sure it will work with the trial version as it does with Nebulosity.

So running the PXP script is easy to do and its great to watch the Mesu moving around the sky. Defiantly amazing.

Maybe tonight I will be able to see if the sky model has improved the mesu`s already great pointing.

Graham

 

[tomato]

Great post. Will give this a go when I finally get the Mesu in a permanent Observatory.

[Fellside]

Just as a follow up to my post on PXP Sky model.

I gave AA4 trial version a try but I could not get it to work so I would recommend the trial version of Nebulosity. as mentioned in the Sitech manual.

I now have a model with 58 points?

I have found that when Nebulosity drops out of listening mode I was restarting from the beginning with a new run. This is not necessary.

Hit the abort button in Nebulosity and restart the Script to go back to listening mode. Then in Sitech move the cursor on the list of pxp points (its small and I missed it at first) to the next point in the list after the one that failed. Then hit the Courser Play button and the mount should move to the next point and the sequence should continue.

As with most thing its easy to do once you've done it.

Hope this helps

Graham