The Telescope Pointing Errors box displays the primary error terms in Degrees, Minutes, Seconds format. The meaning of the various terms is as follows:
|
Hour Angle Bias |
The constant bias error in the telescope's Hour Angle. This is equivalent to the negative of Right Ascension bias error. |
|
Declination Bias |
The constant bias error in Declination. |
|
Collimation |
The collimation error in Right Ascension; i.e. how far the optical axis is from being perpendicular to the declination axis. Any collimation error in Declination is handled by the Declination Bias. |
|
Axes Misalignment |
The deviation from perpendicularity between the Right Ascension and Declination axes. |
|
Polar Azimuth |
The deviation of polar alignment in Azimuth (positive when mount axis is east of pole). |
|
Polar Altitude |
The deviation of polar alignment in Altitude (positive when mount axis is above pole). |
|
Tube Droop |
The droop of the telescopes tube or superstructure due to gravity. |
|
Mount Flexure |
Structural flexure in the rest of the mount. |
The Polar Azimuth and Polar Altitude values are highlighted because they are useful when polar aligning the telescope. MaxPoint can correct for pointing errors; to prevent drift during imaging or photography you want these errors to be as small as possible. A severe polar alignment error will cause field rotation even if you are guiding.
If you change the polar alignment of the telescope, you should run a Recal Portable calibration on the Control Panel to determine the new polar alignment errors.