The timer is started by pressing the ENTER button, which will temporarily cause the display to show the following:

START

This indicates the direction and distance to Polaris. You should now move your telescope to the indicated position just like under GUIDE mode. When you have zeroed both angles, your display should look like this:

POLARIS 0♦0 0♦0

The elapsed time from the moment you pressed the ENTER button will then be displayed until you press ENTER to stop the timer or MODE to exit the timer mode.

ENCODER

This mode is primarily used for verifying proper operation of the encoders. The encoder angles (in whole degrees) relative to their startup positions is shown. For equatorial mounts, the first axis is Right Ascension and the second Declination; for Alt/Az mounts, the first axis is Azimuth, the second Altitude.

For more information on using this mode to test the performance of your encoders, see the Encoder Test section beginning on page 4.

POLAR (NGC-miniMAX and NGC-MAX)

Although the MAX computer can be used without it, having your telescope polar aligned is desirable in many cases. The accuracy of a clock drive depends upon this alignment for visual and especially photographic purposes. The POLAR mode is used to achieve a highly accurate polar alignment.

Before using this mode, you must change your setup to reflect either an EP (Equatorial - Polar aligned), or GP (German - Polar aligned) mount. See SETUP, below, for help on doing this. If you do not do so, upon attempting to enter this mode nothing will happen or you will see:

ONLY FOR EP GP

Once you have ENTERed the POLAR ALIGN mode, use the UP and DOWN buttons to choose a reference star by name from the list of 30 to 40. The star you choose should be between 60º and 120º from the pole — with those near the celestial equator being best. Do not press any more buttons yet.

With your mount at least roughly on the pole (the closer you are to begin with, the faster the process), point the telescope at your chosen star and press ENTER once it is in the center of your eyepiece. A bright asterisk (*) may momentarily appear, followed by a display similar to the following:

POLARIS 77← 83↓

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If your mount is polar aligned, Polaris will appear near the center of a moderately powered eyepiece. (Don't worry about the offset of Polaris from the actual pole — the MAX computer is accounting for this.*) If Polaris is not near the center of your eyepiece, you will need to adjust the altitude and azimuth adjustments of your mount until Polaris is centered in your eyepiece. Be sure not to move your telescope relative to your mount — the computer's display should remain as shown above. If you should accidentally move the telescope itself, you can zero the angles again so that the display does match that above.

Now press the ENTER button, and you will briefly see a reminder to adjust your altitude and azimuth, then a display similar to this:

SIGHT PROCYON

You should now point your telescope back at your reference star and center it in the eyepiece. Press ENTER and you will be instructed to guide back to Polaris. Repeat the above process from this point as many times as desired. With each iteration of the process, your telescope's polar alignment should become more and more accurate. Two or three iterations should be sufficient for most visual work, while up to five or six iterations may be required for long- exposure photographic work.

Users installing a mount permanently will find this procedure helpful for obtaining an accurate polar alignment, however one of the more time-consuming methods (star drift or photographic) should be used for fine tuning.

*While your telescope's optical tube is being aligned on Polaris, the mount's polar axis is actually being aligned on the pole, not Polaris.

SETUP or INSTALL

This mode is used to tell the MAX computer some characteristics of your mount. The meaning of each of the setup parameters is defined here. The first display, showing the selected mount type, will be similar to the following:

SCOPE EQ

Mount. This setting informs the MAX computer of the type of mount your telescope is on. The six types to choose from are AZ, AV, EQ, EP, GQ, and GP (the NGC-