Paramount GT-1100 Robotic Telescope Mount

page 50 Paramount User’s Guide
Uploading the Smoothed Curve to the TheSky TCS.
Once you have an acceptable fit to the recorded data, the new curve must be transferred to
the flash memory in TheSky TCS. When you click Upload, you will be asked to verify
replacement of the PEC table in the Paramount ME’s memory.
Figure 32 – PEC overwrite verification window (TheSky).
Click Yes to write the smoothed PEC curve to control system’s memory. Next, the curve
will be read in to verify the data was written properly. The control system now holds the
PEC table and can use it to reduce the effects of cyclical errors on your images. Don’t forget
to cycle the power on the mount first!
Apply PEC
The Apply PEC checkbox must be checked to activate the corrections. Even with a PEC
table present in flash memory, no corrections are made unless this option is selected.
The control system contains a parameter called the “PEC cutoff speed” that allows for
setting the speed at which the PEC table will be ignored. Turning off the PEC effectively
sets this speed zero, i.e. the PEC table is ignored at all speeds.
When the PEC table is activated, it is ignored at all speeds more than double that of sidereal
tracking. Interestingly, even small corrections of 3-5 arcseconds cause an audible (and
somewhat annoying) variation to the otherwise smooth sounding motors at higher speeds.
Copy
The Copy command simply copies the PEC values to the clipboard. These units of these
values are in encoder tics. The number of entries depends on the PEC ratio computed by the
following formulae:
125 * PEC Ratio
So if the PEC ratio is 10 (that is, a 10:1 gear reduction before the worm) then the number of
entries is 1,250.
The format of the data can be viewed in Notepad (or any other ASCII text editor) by
clicking Edit | Paste. It is a simple format, each of the entries are separated by a carriage
return/line feed.
Paste
This command will take a string of numbers from the clipboard and copy them into the
Recorded Table area. You can work to provide a better smoothing in another application or