Tonight I tried to run PEMPro against my Paramount ME. All I got was a what looked kind of like a curve, but was definitely too random to use as a real curve. It would never deviate more than +/- 1 arc second. I'm shooting with a TeleVue NP127is + STL-11000. My resolution with this setup is 2.751 arcsec/pixel.

Is this too low of a resolution to see any real errors in the Paramount? Am I maybe just chasing seeing that is masking the real worm pattern? My STL-11K isn't downloading very fast, and I get maybe one update every 2-3 seconds, which seems too low when I compared the screenshots of others.

Thanks for any help ahead of time.

Hi Ozy,

This is definitely too low resolution to best measure a Paramount ME's PE. You would get better results if you could but at least a 2x barlow on the scoipe. Unfortunately the STL11000M has a very slow download, even when using subframes. 2-3 seconds is normal. That said a Paramount's PE curve is rather smooth so you can get away with th eslow collection speed.

The other possibility to speed collection times is to use the STL11000's built-in autoguider chip. To do this you need to swap the main and autoguiider chips in the camara configuration.

-Ray

I do have a C14, but I think I'd prefer using a barlow on my TeleVue. Great idea on using the guider chip instead. I'll give it a try this weekend at the observatory. Do you have a sweet spot for resolution? Maybe I don't even need to worry about PE until I start imaging with a longer scope. For now, I'm pretty much only interested in wide field until galaxy season. I have been getting perfect 10 min unguided, and last night shot a 30 min Ha with slow 6sec guiding with perfect stars too. This was in the field with ~.6 arc/min polar alignment in both axis + 20 point T-point model.

quote:

Do you have a sweet spot for resolution?

I usually recommend at least 2.0 arc-sec/pixel. For a paramount 1.0 arc-sec/pixel would be nicer still!

-Ray