How Do I Guide in Dec in One Direction With AA and AO

[Forum_2016]

Hi all,

When I am guiding with AA6.01 and SX Adaptive Optics - things seems ok in initially. The on screen guiding shows lots of fast adjustments in RA and DEC and the star stays well centered.

Like most of us, even though I am fairly well polar drift aligned, there is still some drift after several minutes in DEC. The AO has a limit in how far it can tilt its optics in RA and DEC.

The RA limitations are mostly overcome by switching PEC on and that keeps things within the bounds of the RA tilt mechanism most of the time. But in DEC because the drift is always one-way (barring very minor fluctuations) the AO soon runs out of corrective space in that axis.

How do I get over this?

The only thing I can think of is to find a setting in AA that only guides in one direction in DEC when it comes to performing mount bumps. There is an option in the Telescope Guide Windows where you can enable or disable the "RA", "DEC+" or "DEC -" values. However when I switch off the "DEC +" for example this only affects the AO. How do I force AA to use the AO in DEC + and DEC - but only send mount bumps in (say) DEC+.

There reason I need to do this is two fold : 1. Because the Dec drift is only one way and 2. Even if there was a need for a mount bump in the opposite direction this would be redundant as it would be taken up by the large amount of backlash I have in that direction.

Thank in advance.

John