Proper and reliable automatic guiding utilizing the computational power of Personal Computer (e.g. calculation of star centroid allows guiding with sub-pixel precision) is not simple task. Guiding complexity corresponds to number of parameters, which must be entered (or automatically measured). And the number of necessary parameters lead to splitting of the “Guiding” tab in the SIMS into two separate tabs. The first one is called “Guiding setup” and it summarizes all parameters necessary for proper autoguiding setup.

The second tab called “Guiding” thereafter allows switching of autoguiding on and off, starting of the automatic calibration procedure and recalculation of autoguiding parameters when the telescope changes declination without the necessity of new calibration. Also swapping of the German Equatorial mount no longer requires new autoguider calibration.

This tab also graphically displays time history of guide star offsets from reference position in both axes. The length of graph history as well as the graph range can be freely defined, so the graph can be adjusted according to particular mount errors and periodic error period length.

Complete log of calibration procedure, detected offsets, correction pulses etc. is also shown in this tab. The log can by anytime saved to log file.

If anyone controls the cameras and telescope directly under the night sky, it is useful to minimize the effect of bright computer screen to night vision eye adaption. New version of SIMS allows switching of the Windows operating system GUI to “night vision mode”, which converts the color palette to red hues.

The switching of the GUI color palette to night mode does not change the color palette of displayed images (black-and-white by default). But it is very easy to chose the black-and-red color palette also for displayed images using the “Palette” tool.

SIMS v1.1.4 can be freely download from the download section of this WWW server.