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public:catalinas:lemmon:schulman_32:finding_lost_telescope_position

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Finding Lost Telescope Position

So you lost your telescope… It happens to the best of us. Below is a procedure to require celestial position in the event (due to power lose or Sarah Lemmon shenanigan's) the telescope has completely lost its position.

Refind Home

Turn Off the Controller

I know. It sounds weird but hear me out. The telescope doesn't know where it is and the drivers are engaged. You could use the hand controller to move it into position in the next step but that runs the risk of the Controller thinking you are going into a soft limit and thus not letting you get truly into position.

So just do what I tell you. Turn the Controller off via the big red switch. When you do this Maestro, on the desktop, will be unhappy. That's ok. It will automatically reconnect once the Controller is turned back on.

Point to Park

Turn On the Controller

Align from Last

Calibrate to Alt/AZ

Align from Home Seek

Calibrate on Bright Star

It is also possible to realign the telescope via a bright star in the sky. This won't be as accurate as doing a “Home Seek” but should be faster if you are already on the sky and simple lost positioning for whatever reason.

Align from Last

In the Alignment section of the Settings tab look at the Status. It should either say Completed OR Not Aligned.

image of both options

If it says Completed then you can just proceed to the next step. If it is alignment you will be unable to calibrate

Find a Bright Star

Position Star on Main Camera OR in Eyepiece

Calibrate - From Bright Star

On the Settings tab of Maestro3 locate the Calibration section then the From Bright Star.

insert image of the above step

There is a drop down below the button. Select the star you have pointing the telescope at and simple hit the From Bright Star button. There will be a

Troubleshooting

If the above procedure does NOT fix your issue there is something else going on. Check the RA tape for bugs, make sure the telescope is well balanced, note any errors in Maestro. If you can't find a solution contact Travis.

public/catalinas/lemmon/schulman_32/finding_lost_telescope_position.1663876817.txt.gz · Last modified: 2022/09/22 13:00 by tdeyoe