Meade RCX400 Manuel d'utilisateur télécharger pdf

A few advices on the use of amateur

telescopes Meade RCX400

V. Kornilov, B. Safonov

May 12, 2010

Introduction

It is known that small 25 – 30 cm amateur class telescopes are used in solving many problems of

astronomy: study of variable stars, search for exoplanets, registration of optic tramsients and gamma-

ray bursts. Very often these instruments are used in site testing campaignes.

To study the optical turbulence above planned location of the 2.5 m telescope of the SAI, 30 cm

telescope Meade RCX400 was purchased. This telescope is progressive representative of the its class.

Here we would like to present some tips on how to force such a telescope to operate in automatic

mode over long time. May be some tips are related to the speciﬁcs of this telescope, others are more

general and can be applied in diﬀerent situations.

We operate a telescope at 2100 m above sea level with temperatures of down to −20

◦

C and with

humidity reaching to 100% over 2 years almost every clear night. Despite recurring problems with

this telescope, about 2000 hours of measurements of the optical turbulence were carried out during

which more than 3000 pointing were made.

We will not describe the features of the telescope, they can be found in the user manual and

on diﬀerent sites. We emphasize only that the developers tried to make a convenient instrument

for occasional observations. A telescope for automatic operation (without operational intervention,

with only periodic remote control) set for a long time and is constantly under the control of external

machine.

Naturally, many of the inherent features (such as a GPS receiver) seem superﬂuous, and, conversely,

some of the functionality you need is absent. However, we are not going to criticize the shortcomings

of the telescope and try to describe our experience in overcoming them.

1 Telescope installation and additional arrangements

Fork mount of the telescope allows you to use it in the polar or alt-azimuth installation. If the

possibility exists set the telescope in the equatorial conﬁguration. Thus, you will greatly simplify task

of monitoring the behavior of the instrument. Do not rely on the fact that the software will correct

errors of the mount alignment. Align position of the polar axis with the greatest possible care. The

disadvantage of the polar set is some loss of stiﬀness due to the equatorial wedge under the mount

base. However, if it is stationary robust construction, its inﬂuence will be much less than a vibration

of the mount.

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Résumé du contenu

Page 1 - Introduction

A few advices on the use of amateurtelescopes Meade RCX400V. Kornilov, B. SafonovMay 12, 2010IntroductionIt is known that small 25 – 30 cm amateur cla

Page 2

If the size of telescope enclosure permits the use of the alt-azimuth conﬁguration only, installcarefully azimuthal axis to vertical. You can use stri

Page 3 - 2 Telescope ﬁnder

Figure 2: Visual inspection of the telescope with help of WEB-camera Philips SPC900NC. Left: duringthe observations in the moonlight, right: in the do

Page 4

Figure 3: The Pleiades image obtained with the camera ﬁnder. The faintest star in the frame has amagnitude 8.3m3 The maintenance of the telescope coor

Page 5 - 4 Focusing and collimating

4. Default Position. In this mode, before each shutdown the telescope is set at a ﬁxed positionwhich coordinates are pre-installed with the command :h

Page 6 - 5 Dew cap

:EK...# simulating the pushing of the buttons on the telescope keypad. The buttons codes are givenin Appendix A. Assuming that pad is in initial state

Page 7 - 6 Appendix A

6 Appendix ATable 2: Command :EK. . . # codes, corresponding the keypad of Autostar II (The code in decimalform, movement arrows codes could not be de

Page 8

Figure 4: Main dimensions of Meade RCX400 12′′telescope, needed for enclosure design and installa-tion8