25th September 2019 One slew forwards.. two back?

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Wednesday: A grey day with dark overcast and persistent rain if the forecasters are to be believed. Which means I can't use the sun as a target. So I need a fixed test point without a sky object. Polaris is close enough to fixed without needing to see it. Or so I hope. I need to play with the AWR clock to see if it makes any difference in Goto accuracy.

My usual habit is to go out to the observatory in the morning and slew to the sun. I then follow it until lunch time when I shut everything down. This avoids any conflicts if the drive system should throw a Meridian Flip. Though I am still not sure whether it would [or could] do so without permission. 

Anyway, after lunch I start up the system again and send it off to find the sun. Again from C-Du-C with a Goto slew. This always involves a Meridian Flip because the sun has always moved westward of South while I was enjoying lunch indoors. Further study of the IDS Manual suggests that the telescope will not do a Meridian Flip unless the specific button is pressed.

And yes, I have been enjoying a considerable run of sunny days this year. This is Denmark. Not Gravely Blighted. Where it can rain on the latter on any day of the year. Denmark is far more civilised about these things. It lets it rain on the UK first so it uses up its larger dollops of Atlantic weather. So Denmark usually enjoys only the remains of secondhand rain.

So now I need to run some test slews from the parking position to Polaris and back again. Or, I could call Polaris the parking position and send it to either the East [or Western] horizons. For want of any better location. Somewhere which can be easily checked without the normally active sky objects to play with. I don't even need to open the dome for this. Provided I can keep warm and dry.

I have covered all of this before but routines do not exercise the mind as to possible alternatives. Not when one can safely concentrate on the imaging.  So I have to engage my remaining few brain cells in new ploys. For example: AWR needs manual entry of equatorial coordinates if it can't rely on ASCOM & C-Du-C. Where are these coordinates to come from? I don't exactly carry these around in my head. Though, heaven knows, there is plenty of room in there as my ageing brain steadily shrinks. I'll cheat and read the coordinates off the C-Du-C charts but without connecting it.

I spent the morning sending the telescope around an obstacle course between invisible objects. It was past 11am before the sun could just be discerned through the cloud. The telescope missed the target when I slewed to it without an accurate calibration. I synced on the Sun and then sent it to the moon. Which was invisible. Then back to the sun. Which it missed completely. I reset RTC to GMT+1hr. [UT +2Hrs] If only the sky would clear enough to have both the moon and sun available as easy targets on either side of the meridian. It was quite promising for a while but soon became heavily overcast again.

One amusing anecdote: Provided I didn't Sync on any invisible object, I could send the telescope all over the sky. It would then return safely to centre on the Sun. Cloud thinning slowly. I may even see the Moon before it sets this afternoon. Though by then the sun will have crossed the meridian so I won't enjoy a Flip.

I spent the afternoon and evening running tests on the drives. Now I have discovered a new ASCOM-AWR driver is available and have paid for it.

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