* Make sure camcorder has been charged up beforehand!
* Create Planning page which has the U.S. map and essential data, and the eyepiece chart you make from C2A and the camcorder LCD view
* At site, set up scope and video gear box.
* plug in the IOTA VTI to 12v battery FIRST, at least 15min before the real recording starts
* Do a short camcorder test recording of a few seconds, can use the 'camera' upper position to simplify rather than external input lower position (play(VCR)), and play back to make sure it recorded!
* For Celestron NextStar 8", power up and enter Pacific date and time and long/lat
*
For alignment method use automatic 2-star and pick from the list of restricted stars it chooses, center, hit Enter and then Align buttons, and it'll ask for the second star
* It should say 'succesful' after the 2 star align.
* click Menu button and scroll down to GoTo RA/Dec and enter RA, then Enter and then toggle scroll keys to get proper +- then Enter, then Enter the numbers for Dec, then Enter
* Verify in the Q70 eyepiece your field, center it on a bright star you can then short-hop to the target from.
* Swap out diagonal and eyepiece and screw on f/3.3 reducer followed by Celestron 1.25" visual back. Pull out Watec 910hx and screw on the nosepiece and insert to back of visual back. Be sure the menu wheel is on the bottom left and the camera is square with the horizontal/vertical.
* Attach power cord to Watec 910hx and RCA jack video from Watec to the one from the camcorder.
* Put the camcorder on top of the VTI, push selector on lower right back of ZR45mc to play(VCR) and watch the power come on the LCD screen.
* push ZR45mc camera remote to red RecPause to see what the telescope and Watec sees
* If the VTI has been on for at least 15 minutes, verify there is no 'hourglass' visible on the time display at bottom, and then push the reset button on the rear side to get rid of the 'almanac' message line from the display
* Turn focus knob about 2 rotations to the left (CCW) to find focus.
* For the RC version... here's some of the settings
* 3DNR set to 'off'