Making Charts for 8" F/4 SNT on GM8 Mount, polar aligned
- use 1.25" insert and 40mm Plossl to find your target and center in cross hairs.
- insert Watec (without 0.5x)
and put thumbwheel perpendicular to OTA axis and on left side of power and RCA connectors.
* Set C2A on "double arrows" to get north up. North will be up and East on left, so no inversions needed
* Set C2A field marker to CCD rectangle #2 and set it at 25'40" by 18'33" and that's the Watec square view.
* Watec at 16x gets stars to 13.0 in clear dark sky.
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Making Charts for 8" Meade LX200gps
Eyepiece Chart
- For 32mm Orion 70deg Eyepiece with 2" Diagonal
* Set C2A to 'grid type' = azimuthal, and 'horizon' mode at fixed time about 30 minutes before your event
* Under Tools then Field Markers then click Eyepiece field circles then Circle 2 and make sure the entry is 65' (which is 10/8 times the 10" meade fov)
* Adjust the star sizes with the slider bars at very bottom ; size 3 for upper and size 1 for lower
* Screen capture with shift+Fn+F11 on your Dell Latitude and then open Photoshop and file and new and then inside the box paste . Example of Plieades with Alcyone with cross.
* In Photoshop: Image then Adjustments then invert
* Image then Rotate Canvas then Flip horizontal
* Now can annotate if desired. Pick an easy to ID asterism that's bright and use text tool to insert coordinates
* Put somewhere on the chart the predicted time of event, so this chart is all you need at crunch time.
Chip Chart for Watec 910hx
*
Set rectangular field marker 25'45" x 19' like this which is rectangle 2A in my Dell laptop C2A.
* Use UCAC4 catalog with magnitude limit of 15.0 to optimize which stars to show
* Pull back and make sure the constellations look like you'd see them naked eye, and in 'field' orientation
* if the altitude of the object remains below 76 degrees during set up and event, then only need to mount the Meade-to-1.25" adapter as per usual, with Watec inserted all the way with longer plastic c-1.25" adapter ring, and the menu wheel on the lower left as you sit behind the telescope. In this case, you can make normal charts (2 mirrors, no chart-flipping needed), zoomed in to suit you.
* if the altitude is above 76 degrees during targeting or event, must plan for that..
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by using the 1.25" diagonal or 2" diagonal with 1.25" barrell inserted. Then need to make "flipped charts" where you will use the horizontal arrows to toggle once which will flip horizontal orientation. For field rotation, use the blank at right of the arrows to enter e.g. 90 for a 90 degree rotation. Doesn't seem to matter which of the horizontal arrows you hit, so you have to remember what you did; pullback and look at wider constellation to make sure if necessary.
-------- or, perhaps by using Owl 0.5x and skipping the f/3.3 or f/6.3 reducers. I think this will clear the fork. I think this is preferable since no flipping necessary. TRY IT before going with the flipping and diagonal method. The only thing the diagonal method has going for it, is then you only need do "flipped" charts for both eyepiece targeting and camera. Anyway, need to play with this before deciding best solution. There's less glass involved if skipping the f/3.3 and/or f/6.3 reducers, which might buy 0.1 magnitude or so, but the FOV will be smaller. See where focus reached too, which might help/hurt speed.
* do screen capture, put into Photoshop, use invert to make it white sky and dark stars, add the RA/Dec for target and also some bright nearby identifiable star to aim at for focusing using the text tool in Photoshop.
* Save to your 'planning' page and so you can print easily the core data and charts from your office before heading to the Observatory.
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Making Eyepiece Charts for 10" Meade
- For 32mm Orion 70deg Eyepiece on 10" Meade with 2" Diagonal
* Set C2A to 'horizon' mode at fixed time about 30 minutes before your event
* Under Tools then Field Markers then click Eyepiece field circles then Circle 2 and make sure the entry is 52'
* Adjust the star sizes with the slider bars at very bottom
* Screen capture with shift+Fn+F11 on your Dell Latitude and then open Photoshop and file and new and then inside the box paste . Example of Plieades with Alcyone with cross.
* In Photoshop: Image then Adjustments then invert
* Image then Rotate Canvas then Flip horizontal
* Now can annotate if desired. Pick an easy to ID asterism that's bright and use text tool to insert coordinates
* Put somewhere on the chart the predicted time of event, so this chart is all you need at crunch time.
Making Videocamera FOV's if Target stays below 76 deg altitude before/during event
*
For Watec, set rectangular field marker 20'40" x 14'22" like this which is rectangle 2A in my Dell laptop C2A.
* Use UCAC4 catalog with magnitude limit of 15.0 to optimize which stars to show
* Pull back and make sure the constellations look like you'd see them naked eye, and in 'field' orientation
* if the altitude of the object remains below 76 degrees during set up and event, then only need to mount the Meade-to-1.25" adapter as per usual, with Watec inserted all the way with longer plastic c-1.25" adapter ring, and the menu wheel on the lower left as you sit behind the telescope. In this case, you can make normal charts (2 mirrors, no chart-flipping needed), zoomed in to suit you.
* if the altitude is above 76 degrees during targeting or event, must plan for that..
--------
by using the 1.25" diagonal or 2" diagonal with 1.25" barrell inserted. Then need to make "flipped charts" where you will use the horizontal arrows to toggle once which will flip horizontal orientation. For field rotation, use the blank at right of the arrows to enter e.g. 90 for a 90 degree rotation. Doesn't seem to matter which of the horizontal arrows you hit, so you have to remember what you did; pullback and look at wider constellation to make sure if necessary.
-------- or, perhaps by using Owl 0.5x and skipping the f/3.3 or f/6.3 reducers. I think this will clear the fork. I think this is preferable since no flipping necessary. TRY IT before going with the flipping and diagonal method. The only thing the diagonal method has going for it, is then you only need do "flipped" charts for both eyepiece targeting and camera. Anyway, need to play with this before deciding best solution. There's less glass involved if skipping the f/3.3 and/or f/6.3 reducers, which might buy 0.1 magnitude or so, but the FOV will be smaller. See where focus reached too, which might help/hurt speed.
* do screen capture, put into Photoshop, use invert to make it white sky and dark stars, add the RA/Dec for target and also some bright nearby identifiable star to aim at for focusing using the text tool in Photoshop.
* Save to your 'planning' page and so you can print easily the core data and charts from your office before heading to the Observatory.
Making Videocamera FOV's if Target is above 76 deg altitude before or during event
* Watec will hit fork bottom, so must use diagonal or perhaps 0.5x Owl and skip f/3.3 or f/6.3 reducers. Experiment first and then make out procedures
* Derek's Watec 902h2 1/2" chip FOV on 12" with 0.5x Owl reducer only. is 15.0' x 10.0'. So on my 10" LX200 that would be 18.0' x 12.0' FOV. And if I couple in the f/6.3 reducer I'm guessing that raises it by 10/6.3 ratio, up to 28.5' x 19.0'. This is much larger than what I see using the f/3.3 reducer and no Owl 0.5x, so experiment with this!!
At the Telescope:
* For any scope, be sure that your IOTA VTI is up and running for 15 minutes before the event, so that leap seconds since manufacture can be auto updated and incorporated into the data.
For Watec on 10" Meade Mobile Scope:
* use eyepiece chart to find target.
* Swap in the Meade-to-1.25" adapter mated to the f/3.3, screw into the Meade. Slide in the Watec with 1.25" adapter and clamp screw. Make sure OSD wheel is on lower left as you look at camera from behind.
If Using the PC165DNR on the ST80 in the Dome...
* Get C2A on the target area, in normal field mode. To match what TV screen sees only need to rotate, not flip...
-- if in West: type in -90 in rotate box and hit Enter and it'll rotate C2A to match TV screen (and LCD screen when plugging into ZR45mc)
-- if in East: type in 90 in rotate box and hit Enter and it'll rotate C2A
* the size of the TV screen as seen on the camcorder LCD screen is about the same as the red box, but on the TV screen it's a bit bigger, like the orange box.
* To undo these rotations, just hit the script'y looking X
For PC164cEX2 on 10" Meade mobile scope:
*Target in eyepiece at ~3:30 o'clock when standing straight on to the eyepiece, and target 1/3 of the way from the center to the nearest edge. That will put the target in the middle of the chip. Swap out elbow and put on f/3.3+1.25" adapter on far end, shove in pc164cex2 all the way, with 1/4" hole facing up. Go 1/2 rev CCW and it will be in focus in the center of the LCD on the camcorder.
