ATTS - Advanced Telescope Tracking System
the telescope tracking and positioning solution by means of highly precise encoders on both telescope axles
Welcome! This site focuses on ambitious amateur astronomers, amateur telescope makers (ATM) and public astronomical institutions (e.g. public observatories).
What is ATTS
- ATTS reduces guiding- and positioning errors to a minimum
- precise guiding without autoguider - no guiding star necessary
- guiding- and positioning accuracy of common telescope hardware increases distinctly
- shaft angle error is permanently better than +/-0.5" (peak Amplitude) and +/- 0.2" (RMS) resp.
- residual error is definitely lower than seeing limited optical resolution
ATTS ...
- is designed for ambitious users with stationary telescopes
- uses high resolution encoders on both telescope axles
- works with common telescope controls using the LX200-protocol (developed with ASTRO ELECTRONIC FS2)
- is ideal for astronomical imaging, spectroscopy and photometry
- is intuitive to operate ... taken from practice for use in practice
Please note:
The current version 1 is a preliminary internal release for testing the basic functionalities. As you can see in the short video of comet 103P Hartley 2 - taken with ATTS - below, it has passed these tests very positively. The required accuracy has been verified! Nevertheless this version is not intended to be distributed as some important features are under development yet.
The first distributable version 2 (release is planned in 2019) will additionally contain the following important functionalities:
- Pointing models for correcting
- errors of polar axis in orientation to north- errors of zero points in RA and DE- errors in right angle between RA- and DE-axis- errors of collimation- tube deformations
- calculating the influence of periodically measured temperature and atmospheric pressure on atmospheric refraction
- additional for "pinpoint"-positioning allowing for
- precission- nutation- yearly aberration
- Integration of important astronomical object catalgues
- positioning and guiding on moving objects (sun, moon, planets, comets, asteroids)
- comfortable observation planning - execution of object lists
- logging of important telescope positions for later re-positioning and observation
Intended for Version 3:
- operation of altazimuth mounts via ATTS
- operation of image rotator via ATTS
- operation of stepper motors with integrated control electronics (a separate telescope control is then no longer necessary)
ATTS is a joint project of Dipl. Ing. Hans-Heinrich Wenk (development, software and implementation)
and
Richard Gierlinger (conceptual formulation, consulting and tests)
