Telescope Alignment Issue - Open

Update 10/20/2025

Obervatory crew reports repeated, terribly unfair, frustrating, and just plain mean spirited failure of the CenterScope script.

The issue seems to be related to a glitch in course positioning. The procedure as they described it to me is correct. Manually (with the paddle or buttons on the computer) put the telescope in ‘Park 4’. Park 4 is telescope tube on the east side of the pier, business end pointed south, tube level with the deck.

Then, we do a magical ‘Unpark from Park 4’ and the Alt and Az displays should snap to 0 and 180 respectively. That course alignment is usually enough to get the telecope pointed out the slit and within a few degrees where it “thinks” it’s pointed.

Generally, we then run CenterScope and it takes a picture, extracts some stars, compares them to a catalog, figures out where the telescope is actually pointing, and applies the correction.

That last step is apparently failing. We’re not finding matching catalog stars for the pattern of stars extracted from the image… hmm…

Next Steps - Gerry will investigate

Once I’m comfortable opening the dome again, I will try aligning the scope and see if I can determine exactly what’s failing.