Meridian Flip

[MikeP]

Hello Again,

Another question just popped up with regards to Meridian Flips in automatic observations. I'm not particularly clear on how this is handled and what the individual options are. Unfortunately the manual doesn't give much detail on those. On the 'Telescope' tab there seem to be two areas related to this:



My questions are:
- I presume Prism can handle the meridian flip for me (my mounts ASCOM driver has no provision for this)?
- Do I have to tell Prism to perform the flip and how do I specify when it carries out the flip (I can't seem to find a checkbox or settings for this)?
- What do the two options 'carry out auto field search...' and 'Synchronize CCD X/Y...'mean?

Thank you!

Mike

[Hamza Touhami]

Good morning Mike

Thanks for a great question, this comes up a few times here and there. The fact of the matter is, the automation software requests slews and the driver of the mount perform the flip. In a way, one is only required to know what the flip limit is in the driver. As an example, I have the meridian as my limit to simplify things.

Prism asks:
1) when should I stop tracking and imaging ? first number in minutes of time ( positive number for before the driver limit and negative for after)
2) where should i go to cause the driver to perform a meridian flip? second number in minutes of time. (Positive number for After the driver limit and negative for before).

I am attaching an image to help explain this further graphically.