Re: [amsat-bb] Telescopes & Satellites

["David B. Toth" <ve3gyq@xxxxxxxxx>]

At 09:13 PM 03/30/01 -0600, Mahlon Haunschild wrote:
>Paul,
>
>You are correct, but that feature is specific to TheSky version 5 (level
>II) or above.
>
>But I wonder if TheSky can actually drive a telescope mount.  Ordinarily
>the program is used with a pair of encoders on the telescope axes to
>sense the pointing angles and convert them to a field-of-view on the
>star charts.  I don't have very much experience with this aspect of the
>program, so can't offer any more thoughts.

Second reply ....

I checked with Tom Bisque ... when you use a Meade mount this way, the 
program continually has to send a "slew-to" command to do the tracking ...

What was done at the planetarium in Boston by Ron Dantowitz was with a 
different type of mount ... (it was an Archimage mount for the record) ...

With a Software Bisque mount, the velocity vector is calculated from the 
orbital data, and the mount is actually driven in two axes, rather than 
requiring repeated slew-to commands.

FYI, DFM engineering is developing a package to drive radio-telescopes and 
track/point with TheSKY ... you could pay the big bucks for that package to 
drive antennas I guess ( <grin> )

Dave

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