Argos - Introduction

The open dome. Needs repainting badly.Background
When my wife and I bought a week-end cottage,  a small observatory consisting of a dome containing a custom built 16" computer controlled Newton telescope, was part of the deal. 

The telescope can only be run by the motors - not manually. Unfortunately the controller circuits does not work, neither does the Commodore 64 computer, that used to control the telescope.

The purpose of this project is to bring the Argos Observatory (as I have decided to name it) back to an operational state.

Goals

  1. Recreate the computer controlled telescope

  2. Implement goto support

  3. Implement pointing error correction,

  4. Implement periodic error correction

  5. Develop capability to do special tracking: moon, asteroids, comets and artificial satellites

  6. Develop full CCD-camera support with autoguiding and autofocus

  7. I have lots of other ideas - but the above 6 should keep me busy for a while