"The most important element in astrophotography is accurate tracking. You can spend tens of thousand dollars on great optics, but 1 min of poor tracking ruins the most pristine view."
Ruben Kier, The 100 Best Astrophotography Targets, Springer, page#308, very first sentences in the Mount chapter
*: using special mechanical adapter to attach TDM encoder coupling onto the RA shaft directly.
"Hi Attila, I am very pleased to tell you I've received the TDM, I've just installed it on the mount and right now I am doing the first tests. I can say it is AMAZING! It works perfectly. For my kind of work, asteroid photometry, I am doing a set of 4 min exposure on asteroids with 2400 mm focal and every image is perfectly guided. It is one of the best hardware I've ever bought. Andrea Ferrero, Italy, 10/08/2010."
"Attila, I feel fortunate to be an early adopter. I do hope that the TDM spreads like wild fire, world wide. It really does work. I know you know that but, in the field, day after day, it truly does work. The attached review (Sky at Night Magazine, UK) is a very good review for such a new idea, product and construct. The chatter in the Losmandy Yahoo Group has always been that this could not be done. There has always been concerned that the encoder would have to be a big a France to measure the radial velocity, but clearly that is worked out, the other thing was that processors would not be fast enough to calculate the correcting factor, and again, it is clear that is also resolved. At this time, I believe that there truly a lack of belief that something so tangibly functional could be with in the reach of mortals, with out the expenditure of ~$9000.00 US dollars for a premium mount. I am delighted to be one of the people on earth to try in and have it working, out of production. Art Morton, USA, 11/05/2010."
"Hello Attila, I must write and tell you about my experience with the TDM two nights ago.
I wanted to image M33 with my 6" refractor. I had just set up the autoguider, when the hard drive failed on the guide computer! I continued with my imaging of M33 using just the TDM encoder.
Here is my image of M33......13 x 300 secs stack. (See among reference shots - Attila.)
TDM saved my nights imaging!! You may quote this in any way you wish. I am very grateful for the TDM! Best regards, David Jackson, UK, 12/10/2012."
E-mail addresses can be provided upon request.
