I'm setting up several of my systems in CCDAutoPilot 3. In the Guided Operation section, I have set the Max. Dither, Max. Error, Max. error cycles, Max. Allowable P-P Error, Max. Allowable Movement, Min. Move and Max. Move. All seem to be sticky (i.e. the program saves the settings for each profile), except Min. Move and Max. Move. It seems every time I change the Min. Move and Max. Move all my system profiles get set to the last values entered. This is very bad when you have such a diverse set of lenses. For example, with my Pentax 67 105mm lens, I have Max. Dither set to 10.0 pixels with a Min. Move set to 0.219 and a Max. Move set to 0.878. For my Pentax 67 300mm lens, I have Max. Dither set to 3.0 with a Min. Move set to 0.076 and a Max. Move set to 0.306. Obviously, if these values aren't sticky, I'm going to get poor results if I image a target with the 300mm lens using the Min. Move and Max. Move values set for the 105mm lens. Is there a way to preserve this value for each System Profile?

Thanks,

Wade

The min. and max. move settings are maintained by your camera control program when you set them and are not maintained in the system profile. The guide calculator is a tool to determine what they should be and set them in the camera control program.

Given your plate scale, have you experimentally determined that the min. and max. values for your 105 mm lens don't work satisfactorily for the 300 mm lens?

If necessary I can consider maintaining them in the system profile in a future version but I need to consider the implications first.

John,

> Given your plate scale, have you experimentally
> determined that the min. and max. values for
> your 105 mm lens don't work satisfactorily for the 300 mm lens?

No, I have not ran any tests to determine if the values set for the 300mm work for the 105mm as well. Hopefully, this upcoming week I can get enough clear skies to run a test or two. I'll let you know what I find.

Wade

Hi Wade,

Thanks. In thinking about your setup a bit more, I think the min. move should be based on your longer FL lens and the max move should be based on your shorter FL lens.

Let me know how that works out for you.

John,

> I think the min. move should be based on your longer FL lens and the max move should be
> based on your shorter FL lens.

The Min. Move idea should work fine; however, the guider would be over-correcting for everything but the FSQ which is not necessarily a bad thing. Setting the Max. Move to my shortest focal length will be more problematic. For example, my shortest focal length lens is 45mm which has a Max. Move value of 2.048. If by some chance the guider needed to move the star 2.048" (e.g. chasing the poor seeing), a change this large may be visible (i.e. elongated stars) when imaging with the FSQ.

Wade