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Date And Time Are Important!!!!

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Posted by Glenn Mitchell on August 31, 2002 22:09:44 UTC

You have to get the date and time entered accurately. You need those for stars, as well as planets.

Turn off your scopes motors. How long does it take for a star to cross your EP? Depending on the FOV of the EP, probably just a minute or two. That's because the Earth is constantly spinning.

In order to find objects, the computer has to calculate the correct sidereal time. To do that, it needs you to enter the date and time precisely (to the minute), including any correction for GMT and your time zone. So, make sure you get the settings correct for time zone and daylight savings.

Once the computer knows the sidereal time, it can look for the coordinates for a star (RA and Dec) and calculate the offsets for the current sidereal time.

If you do not enter the time and date data correctly, your GOTO pointing will be inaccurate, wildly so, if you are way off on the date and/or time.

Mitch

Glenn E. Mitchell II, Ph.D. (aka Mitch)
10" f/10 Meade LX-200 GPS (Big Blue) s/n 01088
Supercharged at ASO by Dr. Clay Sherrod, # 2314-2010
N 30° 30' 49.2" / W 084° 20' 13.8"

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