I have the Temma Goto version of the EM-10 and I just love this little
baby. But it is really an imaging mount not a visual mount.
The Tak Temma Goto currently requires a PC to use the goto. And originally
the Tak Temma Goto only worked with two fairly limited planetarium
programs, (one from Takahashi and another called Kagayaki). But I have
since written a driver for TheSky and it's just great now.
True, it only slews at 150x maximum which is quite slow. But I find this is
only a problem for mount flips where it's a bit ridiculous. But by
comparison at slow speed the precision of its movement and control is
amazing. There's just no comparison with my GP-DX/SkySensor2000 (which does
fast slewing fine, but try to go slow and it's like a 15-year-old learning
to drive a clutch in San Francisco).
The 24 Volt requirement is really not a big problem. I use two small 8Ah
12V gel cells in series and that lasts a couple nights. In the backyard I
use a 24 V wall wart. (In a pinch, like on the third night at CalStar, I
can use the 24V wall wart with an invertor off a 12V deep cycle battery.)
My reservation would be that the upgrade to Temma PC Jr is quite expensive
(it is still a Takahashi after all). (If you have the recent USDII model
the Temma electronics and motors are already in the unit. It only needs
cables and encoders, and I'll bet you could buy the encoders elsewhere than
Tak and install them yourself.)
I have a posted a review with more details and my TheSky driver here:
http://www.well.com/~richardl/astro/temma
- Richard Lawler
(richardl@No-Spam)
http://www.well.com/~richardl/astro
122W
37N
At 08:24 AM 10/30/2001, you wrote:
>On Tuesday 30 October 2001 08:03, you wrote:
> >
> > On a similar note, I just received word from the Anacortes folks that
> > my little EM-10 mount, which I dearly love but had put up for sale
> > for various reasons and then not sold, is capable of being upgraded
> > to the Takahashi Temma GOTO system.
>
>I wouldn't rush out to put a Temma on any mount.
>I'm not impressed with it at all. You need 24v
>to get 150x slew speeds, which sounds like a lot
>but in reality it is ridiculously slow. Operating
>at 12v it can do only 50x sidereal.
>
>Better to do a Melsonian conversion. There's also
>a new "universal" controller coming out of Germany
>that has some promise. These systems need a PC,
>but I've heard of speeds in excess of 6 deg/sec
>from well designed systems.
>
>It may also be possible to adapt a SS2K to an EM-10,
>but you would need to come up with a way to hook
>up the servo motors. Seems to be in the realm of
>possibility.
>
>-- archer
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Oct 30 2001 - 09:39:10 MST