From: "James Lerch" 
To: 
Cc: "ATM List" 
Reply-To: "James Lerch" 


Mel, Your too damn smart :)

I've got to paint a little mental image for everyone.

I'm sitting here thinking about what Mel just posted.  Trying to wrap my
mind around the idea Mel just presented...

I happen to be sitting in a swiveling office chair, so basically my butt is
sitting on an Azimuth mount.   Next I extended both hands out in front of
me,
and sighted down one arm with my eye.  I'm now using my shoulders to
simulate one of the Alt axis...  Next, if I lean Left/Right about my waist,
I can simulate the other Alt axis...

Now I'm sitting here in my simulated three axis mount , and I
imagine where Mars is going to rise in the East, where it will be as it
crosses the zenith, and where it will set in the West..  I make a mental
image of the arc motion this will create inside my office.  I turn my chair
and face south,  Lean to over to the left, sight down my arm and raise it
till I'm near where I expect Mars to rise.  Now I attempt to 'track' Mars
without rotating my butt in Azimuth.  Yup, no problem, but yes, there will
be significant field rotation over the course of the night.

I repeat the above experiment, but this time I use my foot to 'De-rotate'
my view.  OH YEA, that will work!  Interestingly, the rotation in azimuth,
if I start with my knees pointing south, moves my knees towards the east. 
If I
'track and de-rotate' the object across 'the sky' it appears I'm going to
rotate
about a 1/4 turn or so..  Very interesting 

Now, if anyone had seen me doing this, I'd be rather embarrassed as it
might look like I'm performing some weird type of Prayer exercise. 
However, I can take comfort in the knowledge that at least a 'Few' people
that read this, will repeat my simulated experiment 

Like I said Mel, your too damn smart!

BTW, how long until Scope.exe can support this type of mount and how will
we implement it?   Will we need to change the handpad config to
control all three axis drives?  (maybe two more buttons and a 5th control
line?)  This would
be so much easier if our laptops came with TWO printer ports :)

Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction,testing, and coating site)

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