Predictive Guide Enable -
checking this box will allow the program to use historical
guide correction data when calculating guide corrections to be sent to the mount.
Calibrate Backlash Pixels/Seconds
- The calibration routine will attempt to take out
any gear backlash in the telescope mount during the calibration procedure. To do so it
will command a slew and wait a minimum amount of time and detected movement of
the guide star before deciding that all of the gear backlash has been taken out. These
text fields are where you enter the time and movement (in pixels) parameters. Both
have to be true in order to succeed in taking out the backlash.
Calibrate Movement Pixels/Seconds
- the calibration routine will perform a slew of the
telescope mount in both the NORTH and WEST directions to characterize how the
mount responds to slew commands. While slewing, the program will slew for a mini-
mum amount of time and minimum position change distance of the guide star. These
parameter fields are where you enter these parameters. When slewing, the program
will slew this amount of time and distance before stopping and calculating the results.
Auto-guider State
- the guider algorithm of the program is implemented as a state ma-
chine internally. There are many states that the program will progress through while
calibrating and guiding. Several of these states are error conditions and will be dis-
played in RED. The current state of the state machine is always displayed in this text
field.
NORTH Slew Counts/sec
- during the calibrate routine, the number of pixels of position
change per second observed of the guide star while slewing in the NORTH direction is
reported here.
WEST Slew Counts/sec
- during the calibrate routine, the number of pixels of position
change per second observed of the guide star while slewing in the WEST direction is
reported here.
Calculated Camera Angle
- After the calibrate routine has completed, the program will
calculate the angle of the guide camera relative to the main axis of the telescope mount.
The results measured and displayed in the NORTH Slew Counts/sec and WEST Slew
Counts/sec are used for this calculation.
seconds to wait after correction
- some mount controllers cannot accept guider cor-
rections at a very rapid pace. The Starlink program allows you to enter a delay parame-
ter that will be inserted between successive guide corrections. This is where you enter
this parameter.
seconds / correction
- This field allows you to specify how long each guide correction
will take. After sending a guide correction to the mount, the system will need to wait for
the mount to complete the correction slew before making another correction. This field
specifies this time. Since you cannot make a guide correction without first seeing the
results of the previous correction, the program will only make a guide correction after a
fishcamp engineering
Starfish
Guide Camera
