The handpaddle has four momentary-on buttons that move the
scope in altitude and azimuth. The center switch selects between fast
halfstep slewing and smooth slow microstep centering.
The upper two momentary switches select different actions based on the software's current handpad status. 'Left' is the left mode key, and 'right' is the right mode key.
Handpad mode can be:
off: mode switch does nothing
init auto on: pressing either the left or right mode buttons inits the next available init, for instance, if init 1 already accomplished, then init 2 done, if all inits done, then closest init to the new init is replaced by the new init
init 1: pressing either the left or right mode buttons does an init # 1
init 2: pressing either the left or right mode buttons does an init # 2
init 3: pressing either the left or right mode buttons does an init # 3
polar alignment: enters the polar alignment procedure for equatorial mounts
analyze on: if on, the handpad will save a position based on input equatorial and current altazimuth and sidereal time values to the analysis.dat for later mount error analysis
guide on: pressing the left mode button puts the hand paddle into guide mode, where the push buttons act to move the scope very slowly in right ascension and declination by adding or subtracting from the current tracking rate - speed is set by GuideArcsecSec in the config.dat file - moving the switch momentarily to the right ends guide mode, and causes drift values to be calculated, put into use, and displayed - These drift values are used to null out any temporary residual drift due to imprecise initialization of a portable setup or imprecise mount construction, then the scope is moved back to the original Ra, Dec coordinates
guide stay on: as 'guide on' but the scope stays put, adopting the new Ra, Dec coordinates of wherever the guiding corrections took the scope
guide stay save on: as 'guide stay on' with the addition that the guiding corrections are written to the file, 'guide.dat'
guide stay rotate on: when turned on by a press of the left mode hand paddle button, the program will rotate the hand paddle buttons by the guide rotate angle, which is slaved to the field rotation angle
guide drag on: drift or drag values from the config.dat file are added to the current drift when the left mode button is momentarily pressed, and subtracted from the current drift values when the right mode switch is momentarily pressed; this is for knife edge autoguiders that rely on the guide star being constantly dragged back across the knife edge
scroll tour: if the left mode button is pressed, this will cause the scope to continuously move through the scroll file; to stop move press the right mode switch or press any key on the keyboard
scroll auto tour: if the left mode button is pressed, this will cause the scope to continuously move through the scroll file, repeating the scroll tour endlessly; to stop move press the right mode switch or press any key on the keyboard
grand tour: the mode switch moves forward to the next object in the data file, or backwards to the previous object, depending if the left or the right mode button is pressed
record equat: the mode switch will write the current scope equatorial coordinates to the record.dat file when either left or right mode button is pressed
toggle track: the mode switch on the handpaddle can be used to turn tracking off and on (left button = on, right button = off)
the stepper version has separate
FR mode: if the left
mode button is pressed, the left/right or CW/CCW handpad pushbuttons
slew the field rotation motor, when the right mode button is pressed,
the pushbuttons return to their normal duty of moving the telescope
focus mode: if the left mode button is pressed, the
left/right or CW/CCW handpad pushbuttons slew the focus motor, when
the right mode button is pressed, the pushbuttons return to their
normal duty of moving the telescope
while the servo version
has a combined
FRFocus mode where the mode buttons
actives/deactivates FR and focus motor control, where the up/down
controls the field rotation motor and the CW/CCW controls the focus
motor
Auxiliary control mode (not available in the servo version): the four direction buttons control external auxiliary devices, such as focusers and dome controls. Up button : parallel port pin 1, Down button : parallel port pin 14, Counterclockwise button : parallel port 16, Clockwise button : parallel port 17