Astroart Forum

I have just set up a 2nd observatory housing a 16" Newt on Paramount ME and an Altair 10" RC on an EQ8 mount with CCD cameras Moravian and starlite express respectively. I plan to use Astroart7 to control and obtain images on both systems from the start for automated S?N searching and time series photometry and survey work. I already have a C14 edge on a Paramount MEII for which I use The Sky X via MaxIm DL control and PhD2 for guiding.

An initial introduction to Astroart 7 has largely convinced me all I will need is under one roof with AA7 and automation via scripting interests me enormously, but my computer and scripting skills are very limited. Hopefully, some kind souls will assist me.

First question.

Is there a facility or script to allow the telescope to slew to the nearest star of a given magnitude (or range)?

Stay safe,
Eric

Hello, usually there is no need to use a bright reference star. For automatic surveys is simpler to do:

1) An approximate telescope GOTO.
2) A short exposure (5 seconds).
3) Plate solve.
4) Telescope Sync.
5) Small GOTO to the correct position.
The steps 3-5 can be done in one click with the command "Center / Plate solve" of the Telescope Window.

By script, these steps can be done in several ways, there are some examples in the Help, paragraph:
Script / Automatic research / Autocenter script
but before that, you really need to try manually and configure first the plate solve parameters in the "Find coordinate" window.
Greetings,
Fabio.

Fabio,

thanks for replying. The reason I asked was that on my present set up I use maxIm DL for focusing. I do not yet use AA& with it and I find it best to focus on a given magnitude star for a given filter. It would be useful for me there. On my new set up I will use AA7 from the start.

many thanks,

Eric

OK.
Using the fullframe autofocus there's no need to search for a bright star, just autofocus on the same field of the subject. The combined measure of all stars of the field can actually be better and safer than a single measure on a brighter star.