Aloha, Bisque Bros
This is Mara Payne at Applied Optimization in Dayton, OH. We currently have two small telescope systems. One is an RCOS telescope on the paramount ME mount operated using TheSkyX package (including CCDsoft and most importantly Orchestrate). The second is a Meade telescope on a Meade az/el tripod mount operated using same TheSky X package.
As you may recall, we support R&D contracts with AFRL and other AF entities on Space Situational Awareness; and trying to advance the state-of-the-art for using filter photometry of satellites. We have been successfully tracking and collecting good photometry on geostationary satellites but we currently have two issues that we are trying to fix.
1. We'd like to track GEO satellites with inclined orbits. Currently neither telescope system will track them well enough for us to collect photometry without the images streaking.
2. With the az/el Meade mount, we can't seem to get Orchestrate scripting to properly go from one GEO to another. So we have manually control the telescope all night long. Obviously a real bummer. And the data cadence is more sparse than is desirable for our research.
We heard from Pacific Defense Solutions (PDS) that we should contact you and upgrade with the advanced satellite add-on. However, the price is a little high and we wanted to understand what is included and if our current hardware system is compatible with the add-on.
From the description on the web site, it makes is sound like you get a mount along with TheSkyX and the add-on. But when we talked to PDS, they made it sound like there is only software.
Could you describe what is included with the add-on and what the mount requirements are for the add-on?
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Mara Payne