由 社長 » 2012-04-25, 23:48
Paramount在Homing, Direct Guide, Clutchless的優勢:
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Between homing, DirectGuide and lack of clutches, it's a no-brainer to go with the Paramount. AP owner are happy with what they bought but they don't have these features and hence don't miss or see the value in them. The homing feature alone means your mount will never lose its orientation to the sky. There's also no dangling cables that can wrap and break as AP owners have had to endure.
The MX is also especially suited for satellite and close-approach NEO object tracking. The integration of the mount with TheSkyX software (all of which is included with the mount) makes it powerful tool with unique abilities.
If you're not a Paramount user, I won't expect you to understand. I own both AP and Paramounts and the Paramount is the far superior mount.
Jonathan
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Yes, homing sensors allow the mount to reposition itself to a known position. The sensors in the Paramount allow this positioning to be within a few arc seconds each time (there's a spec for this but I don't recall it but suffice to say, the positioning is VERY precise).
Clutches can slip and ruin your mount's alignment. Now people who think clutches are a safety mechanism might argue that if something hangs your mount or it somehow collides with something that it's better to slip than to grind your gears. Well, with some mounts that might be necessary but not the Paramount. The motors when they meet resistance will begin increase their current draw and the electronics in the mount will detect it and stop the tracking. No damage and no physical alignment problems.
DirectGuide is a proprietary feature of CCDSoft that allows guiding WITHOUT a guide cable. Because SB writes all of their software products and builds the mount, they can make one piece of software talk to another. CCDSoft directly sends autoguider slew commands to the mount. It not only eliminates the need for a cable (that might snag or develop a problem) but the response time for detecting a need to bump the mount and doing so is at computer speeds and not at camera relay speeds.
Then there is ProTrack, another proprietary feature that utilizes a high-density Tpoint sky mapping model to allow the mount to be micro-adjusted as it tracks the sky. This is completely autonomous and compliments autoguiding. It will factor out refraction-caused guiding problems. I've been able to image 20 minutes without any guide corrections and have pinpoint stars. With autoguiding enabled, the corrections that need to be made are fewer and smaller (which is good).
There really is so much more to this package, it is as I said a no-brainer. You should spend some more time on the SB website and download a bunch of stuff to read. The more you learn, the more the decision will be easier for you to make.
All of this software is included with the Paramount and tightly integrates with the mount making this the most sophisticated mount an amateur can afford. I find these unique capabilities compelling. If you, on the other hand only value smooth tracking, then pick just about any other decent mount. I own two mounts and when I buy a third, it will become my second Paramount!
Jonathan
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