only 22 data points

10:37 PM, 7 Apr 2012. Dietmar had told me during the afternoon that one could right click the Tpoint icon in TheSky6 to get more info about the model. Cool. That's easy.

I reviewed notes at Software Bisque's site on editing a TPoint model.Read the TPoint manual. Noted the following...

A preliminary assessment of a telescope's pointing capabilities can be made using perhaps 20-30 stars. More extensive pointing runs of 50-100 stars evenly distributed over the sky will provide TPoint with the necessary data to create a model that contains the geometrical terms and any additional terms relevant to the telescope system.

Just tried it, switched off the icon view, and noted it said that there were 22 data points. Hrrm. Not a lot.

Wanted to view the TPoint software and the sheet view of the model but it would not work. On the netbook. I suspected this was because the TPoint software wasn't installed...

Checked on the Dell. Was able to load up the sheet. 22 rows. Yeah...

10:48 PM. Went to Clown Face. For two reasons. To verify the 'scope er mount was OK under orders from the Dell now. And to show Millie.

10:51. I learned that one has to click on the icon in the display before going to the Edit menu, so to get the TPoint Model Object command...

10:58. Attached Dell to network by hard line.

11:18. Copied the manual to the netbook. Example shows a mount without TPoint. R is 2000 and inner circle is 473.9 arcsec. The lower diagram, after TPoint, shows R is 100 and the inner circle 36.8". Ours is...

[I forgot to record this...]

1:38 AM, 8 Apr 2012. One I made is R 200.0 inner 86.3".

It also seems that a polar alignment test or evaluation should be done first... 

Northern Hemisphere

************* AZIMUTH ************
MA: -98 seconds (-1.6 minutes).
Rotate axis East (clockwise).
For latitude 44.49°, the azimuth adjustment is 2.3 minutes.
Paramount ME: Loosen the East knob, and tighten the West knob 1.1 knob tics
Sigma=36.460

************* ALTITUDE ************
ME: -86 seconds (-1.4 minutes).
The polar axis should be lowered -86 seconds (-1.4 minutes).
Paramount ME: Lower the polar axis 0.7 knob tics
Sigma=24.918

Is that bad?

Crikey. How much is a "tic?!"

It was a little late to start this. And I was actually trying to do some observing. It would be better to undertake this without distractions. And hook up the MallinCam. Or use a reticule eyepiece. Still, it was good to start the learning process.