Session To Session Pointing Repeatability - Paramount Fitness ME II User Manual

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3. Choose the Connect command from the Telescope menu.
4. Choose the Find Home command from the Start Up pop-up menu on the Telescope window.
5. Locate an easily identifiable, bright star to use for synchronization.
Partial clouds or twilight can make this task more difficult than it might seem. The Paramount 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 26).
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. From 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's pointing accuracy should be virtually identical from session
to session.
Please verify the repeatability of the Paramount pointing before proceeding (this test assumes that the
mount's polar axis is aligned with the celestial pole):
1. Turn the mount off.
2. Turn the mount on (this terminates communication between TheSkyX Professional Edition and
the Paramount).
3. Home the mount.
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 149 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.
Errors in latitude "appear" to TPoint as a vertical misalignment in the polar axis,
and will pollute synchronization (and the TPoint model, if one is in place).
If your time zone is off by one hour or more, then pointing will be off by the
same amount.
If the wrong Daylight Saving Option is selected, then time will be off by an hour
(or more) and the mount will not slew to the correct position.
Paramount User Guide
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