Tele Vue's Sky Tour Mount Computer gives you the ability to precisely align, aim, track, and find celestial objects with your alt-az, EQ, or fork mount. Using a simple 2-star alignment process to set up the controller, you will be able to choose the mode and use the information the controller gives you to manually move the scope to various objects, identify nearby objects that you see, or have it give you a tour of what is visible on any given night. While this is not a traditional "GoTo" system, if you get the optional encoder for your specific mount, it keeps precise track of the changing orientation of the scope to provide real-time updated coordinates. And if you know an object's location, it can be entered and the Sky Tour will tell you where to move the scope to find it. To expand its usability, the Sky Tour can interface with TheSky astronomy program from Software Bisque by connecting your TheSky-equipped pocket PC, Windows, or Apple computer to take advantage of the software's expanded database.

Performance

• Encoder resolution: 2160 step, 0.167-degree/step (10-arcminute/step) encoders
• Sampling rate:0.5 millisecond
• Maximum slew rate: 160°/second
• Sidereal accuracy: 0.01%

Display

• Red LED display
• 1-line, 10-character
• Five dimming levels
• Display resolution:
  • Right ascension: 1 arcmin
  • Declination: 0.1°
• Display modes:
  • STAR FIX: Alignment mode using convenient star list
  • RA DEC: Current right ascension and declination
  • CATALOG: Complete database of celestial objects
  • GUIDE: Shows direction and distance to object
  • ALIGN: Uses full database to fine-tune alignment
  • IDENTIFY: Identifies object by type

Database

• 2000+ objects
• 110 Messier objects
• Selected NGC objects
• Selected IC objects
• Selected non-standard objects
• Selected stars: colored, double, multiple
• 31 alignment stars
• 8 planets
• 99 user-defined objects