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Subject: "To Guide, or not to Guide"
From: DK0179@AppleLink.Apple.COM
Reply To: mapug@shore.net
Date: Sat Jun 24 04:57:00 1995

The ever returning question of "to guide, or not to guide " : The Meade advertising I referred to, was a misquotation as Jason pointed out. I regret and apologise that, instead of the 3 minutes I wrote, Meades Pictor CCD Imager advertising (Sky & T. April 1995) only talks about 2 minutes : "Imagine ..... obtaining in 2 minutes or less, WITHOUT GUIDING (Meades italics) an image of M51 ..... etc ". So, unguided CCD IS possible, and I believe this will be the future . The 3 minutes I remembered had another source : "Fifteen minutes spent readying an autoguider is a minor price to pay for a 1-hour exposure, but it's a lot overhead for a 3 MINUTE CCD image. EXPOSURES THAT SHORT DON'T NEED GUIDING, IF THE TELESCOPE DRIVE IS FIRST RATE".... - quoting Dennis diCicco, Sky & Telescope, April 1995, p. 50, while he was testing a JMI product. Concerning our particular problems : Meade has offered to exchange (!) our 16" base drive, they believe our problems are hardware based. I am very grateful to that. Whether our future single-exposure time (at f/10, 4 meter) will be 1, 2 or 3 minutes does not matter, this will still be a huge step forward to our student projects, when doing student friendly "CCD Track and Accumulate". Concerning positive and negative comments on this network: if you have ever seen a transmission from the British parliament, this LX200 conference will look like a Sunday morning meeting in the YMCA. If you watch the Italian parliament, you may even get shot. ...(Robert, wonder what happens if I press control + "Escape" ? : - ( ) Let people say their honest negative or positive opinion in a clear, proper way. Good or bad comments, the air gets cleared. In the end , Roberts marvellous network has been, and will be an extremely powerful tool optimising our interest in amateur astronomy. Mogens Winther. P.S: The Shuttle IS visible - brighter than Jupiter . In addition, watch out for the seldom noctilucent clouds, Denmark had very powerful again this night.