AstroArt

[BT Technologies]

I agree that Takahashi should have a technical writer that speaks English fluently rather than the Japanese to English conversion that they do that sometimes makes no sense.

Hopefully you will be able to attend the "Live Chat" with Art from Takahashi this Wednesday the 28th at 9:30 PM EST. This would be an excellent opportunity to bring this up!!

Originally Posted by Murray

What amazes me about all of this astro stuff is that there is really no single set of operating standards out there, and very few sources to whom one can turn. Your experience is typical in that you, as a relative beginner (like me) are breaking new ground or causing others to do the same.

I run a TAK or two and am stunned by the poor standard of info on using something as basic as their EM10 TEMMA mount; you would have thought that the hundreds of letters posted to sites like this would have resulted in someone in that organisation deciding to get a proper job done on their manuals etc.

I recently designed a mine-protected vehicle now being used in Iraq and the task of writing good tech manuals was every bit as important as the vehicle itself. I wonder how many times a product is abandoned by someone who eventually gives up trying to decipher the manual ?

Anyway - just a grumble from someone else who is probably not a smart as he thought he was when it comes to modern technology.

Perhaps this is all part of being in on a relatively new sport.

Murray

[Murray]

I think the key to success is to get the best equipment from day one. Too many of us progress through a series of dollar-barriers as we pretend that we can do things "on the cheap".

I have a good friend who has the money to go out and buy the best and he very quickly stopped messing about with the cheap end of the astro-imaging market. His Paramount ME is stunning: it started up and was instantly able to point exactly where it was directed. Watching a photo of a DSO appearing on the screen with minimal effort is a joy to behold. (He has a 14" OTA)

The moral is that when you pay the big bucks you get the integrated system you were always looking for. How am I going to explain that to my wife ????

Well - this is a little dishonest of me as I have bitten a bullet of sorts and just bought an AP900 mount - I hope it will do the same job as the Paramount in a slightly less expensive manner (when it gets here sometime next month).

Anyway - heres hoping for dark skies and a flash of technical light at the end of the tunnel.

Murray

[Murray]

Brian,

I sometimes think there is a market for getting a whole truckload of manuals and sitting down and re-writing them so the average mortal can decipher them.

It intrigues me the way that an instructor of a sport makes things just a little opaque so he ether gets more lessons out of his students or somehow maintains his god-like image of superiority. As whoever it was in the Sound of Music said " Let's start at the very beginning - a very good place to start".

The TAK manuals are a good example of writing by someone who clearly has not tested their words on beginner - albeit an intelligent one (as all of us budding astronomers are of course). Can it really be that no-one ever let them in on the facts?

Is there a really good, clear manual out there for people like me who want to know everything about running a goto mount. I doubt it. My friend (with 20 patents includingthe barcode-reader to his name) had terrible trouble with the Celestron manuals - he now has a Paramount and produces wonderful astro-images.

Is there a market for this ? I was an editor of a leading defence technoogy journal a few years ago and I would be onterested to team with others to get this going.

How about a corner on this site where we could bring this together ?

Murray

[Gary Beal]

Originally Posted by Murray

How about a corner on this site where we could bring this together ?

Murray

I reckon you are onto it Murray. I for one struggle with the Temma 2 goto, and The Sky together, things like synching etc. The manual/instructions I received were a joke, no offence meant to the supplier, just plain inadequate.
Of late I have been using the Telescope Control in Maxim DL, as it is marginally better, and I have a manual. Could be I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer of course, and the constellations are all upside down, but...................
Gary