Takahashi NJP -- Python Utility ...
December 23, 2009
The Takahashi NJP mount contains a nice polar alignment telescope that can be used to align the mount's axis with the north celestial pole. This is achieved by placing Polaris not at the center of the telescope's cross-hairs, but along a series of concentric circles (since Polaris is not located quite at the pole itself). The exact location of Polaris that is required for proper alignment varies with the time of day and the observer's longitude, and establishing the correct placement requires following an algorithm described in the NJP manual.
To make the alignment procedure easier, I recently wrote a small program in Python to calculate the proper view through the alignment telescope. The program simply implements the procedure specified in the NJP manual and has not yet been properly tested. Nevertheless, I'll provide the code here. This must be run from a Python interpreter, but it requires no strange libraries, not even Numpy or matplotlib -- nothing more specialized than Tkinter, which should (probably?) ship with every Python distribution anyway.
In any case, I may prepare a standalone Mac .app file if I get around to it. Post a comment or let me know in some other way if there is interest in a standalone version.
To make the alignment procedure easier, I recently wrote a small program in Python to calculate the proper view through the alignment telescope. The program simply implements the procedure specified in the NJP manual and has not yet been properly tested. Nevertheless, I'll provide the code here. This must be run from a Python interpreter, but it requires no strange libraries, not even Numpy or matplotlib -- nothing more specialized than Tkinter, which should (probably?) ship with every Python distribution anyway.
In any case, I may prepare a standalone Mac .app file if I get around to it. Post a comment or let me know in some other way if there is interest in a standalone version.