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pole star may be somewhat
1.From the ALIGN menu option in the TELESCOPE mode, press the ENTER key.
2.Ignore the Keypad display instructions to return the telescope to 90 degrees in Declination and 00 HA. Instead, press the GOTO key and the CDS will slew to the calculated position of where the pole star should be.
3.Using only the Latitude and Azimuth adjustments on the LXD Equatorial Mount,
4.Press the ENTER key, and the CDS will slew to a bright star overhead. Center this star using the "N", "S", "E", or "W" keys and press ENTER.
5.While waiting
6.After
NOTE: Pressing the MODE key at any point in the alignment routine will abort the routine and exit to the top menu.
There may be situations when it is impossible to see the pole star (e.g., something blocking your line of sight). In such an occasion, follow the Precise Polar Alignment instructions in Appendix A of this manual. You will require the use of an illuminated reticle crosshair eyepiece to complete the task. Once finished, follow the steps outlined below to access the Object Library.
3)SMART: The SMART menu file controls the CDS Smart Drive, a system designed to eliminate the small errors induced by tiny gear imperfections that tend to slightly speed up or slow down the drive tracking speed. These gear imperfections occur in a regular eight minute pattern, the time required for one rotation of the worm. The CDS can be trained to remember the pattern of these imperfections and automatically apply the corrections needed. Use of the Smart Drive greatly enhances the tracking characteristics of the CDS, thus simplifying guiding during astrophotography.
The menu also has provisions for correcting Declination drift. Smart Drive will retain its training, even after the telescope is turned off. (Of course, it is possible to retrain the system or erase the training, if desired.)
The SMART menu has five options. They are; LEARN, UPDATE, ERASE, DEC LEARN, and DEC CORRECT. To train the Smart Drive, the telescope must be equipped with an illuminated reticle eyepiece. Be sure to train the Smart Drive in the 60.1 Hz Quartz setting; the CDS is automatically set at 60.1 Hz at power up. Thereafter, you can adjust frequency setting in the TIMER/ FREQ mode and still enjoy the periodic error correction.
Training the SMART DRIVE:
Once polar alignment of your telescope has been completed, the CDS is pointing the telescope to a bright star overhead, near the Celestial Equator. This star may be used, or another, as long as the chosen guide star is near 0 degrees in Declination and more or less overhead in Right Ascension. Before beginning the
SMART DRIVE training, set the brightness and/or the pulse rate of the illuminated reticle (see page 10, The RET Key) on the chosen guide star and practice guiding (keeping the star exactly centered in the eyepiece) for a few minutes. Then, follow these steps:
1.While in the SMART menu, move the LCD arrow to LEARN by using the PREV or NEXT key and press
ENTER.
2.Numbers appear next to the LEARN display. These numbers will begin counting down to zero. The highest number that can appear is 200. This number represents a sector of the worm wheel. The sector changes every 2.4 seconds. The SMART DRIVE needs to find its beginning sector before training can start. It will be necessary to wait until the system counts down to zero to begin.
3.As the Keypad display approaches its beginning sector, a beeping alerts you that training is about to commence. At this point, begin guiding on the chosen guide star, using the N, S, E, and W keys.
A tone will beep every few seconds throughout the training session. Try to keep the star in the same location on the crosshair during the ten minute training sequence.
4.After eight minutes, the beeping stops, indicating that the training is over. The Smart Drive immediately starts playing back your drive corrections automatically, dramatically improving the R.A. drive tracking characteristics.
If you wish to further refine the accuracy of the drive system, move the LCD arrow to UPDATE and press ENTER and follow the same instructions as above. This can be done in UPDATE as many times as you wish. With each training, the Smart Drive will average your training sequences.
If a mistake has been made in training (e.g. pushing E instead of W), you can eliminate the memory by moving the LCD arrow to ERASE and press ENTER.
DEC LEARN:
A star that drifts consistently North or South during guiding, can also be corrected for. With a guide star centered in the telescope's field of view, move the LCD arrow to DEC LEARN and press ENTER. Begin making drive corrections immediately by pressing any of the direction (N, S, E, W) keys to keep the star on the crosshair of the guiding eyepiece. It is suggested that you train in DEC LEARN for at least half of your intended exposure time for an astrophoto. The longer you train, the more accurate the DEC LEARN will be. Once the desired time is finished, press ENTER and the training will cease.
The Smart Drive then determines how many key pushes occurred in N and S and chooses the direction which received more commands. It then averages the time between key pushes in the chosen direction. In this way, the Smart Drive can correct for Declination drift (should your polar alignment be slightly off), or will allow you to more precisely guide on non- stellar objects, such as comets, asteroids, etc.
To play back your DEC LEARN training, move the LCD arrow to DEC CORRECT and press ENTER. To halt the play back press ENTER again. To erase the DEC LEARN training, either move the LCD arrow back to DEC LEARN and press ENTER twice or turn the CDS off.
4)12/24 HR: This menu selection of the TELESCOPE file simply toggles between a twelve and
