(North America)
The Motorized Feather Touch System |
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Starlight Instruments is pleased to announce new additions to the Feather Touch product line. Based on innumerable requests from our customers, we are proud to announce the introduction of the long awaited motorized attachment, The Digital Feather Touch System. The system incorporates a focus hub (DH-1) that controls the focuser (DSM-1) from either a computer through an ASCOM compliant software interface, and /or a hand controller (DHC-1) with a digital display. << Click for a closer look. |
The precision engineered Digital Feather Touch System incorporates unique advanced features not found in any other product in the industry. The components of this system are made available separately to allow you to customize the system to your unique needs. By acquiring only those components required to optimize your system for your specific use, (Visual and/or CCD Imaging) your upgrade costs are kept to a minimum. Furthermore, as you expand your applications you can easily upgrade your system by purchasing additional components. The Motorized Feather Touch System comprises of the following components: |
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| DSM-1 Stepper Motor Attachment
The DSM-1 incorporates a high torque stepper motor with a geared drive that seamlessly meshes with your existing Feather Touch focuser. When hooked up to our focus drive hub, this system provides smooth, precise powerful control that can move an 8-pound load, about 3 microns per step. Please note that our performance figures are conservative - With our products, "results may vary" but only in the positive direction! Attaching the motor housing to your Feather Touch is quick and simple - using just a pair of socket wrenches, you can plug and play with the motorized version within seconds. The DSM-1 retrofits to our entire product line, thus extending the return on your investment. You can have multiple telescopes fitted with individual DSM-1's and simply switch Hubs & Hand Controllers cables. |
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DH-1 The Motorized Feather Touch Hub Central to the modularity of the system is the DH-1 the Digital Feather Touch Hub, which incorporates most of the electronics to drive the focuser into one neat little case that can sit right next to your telescope. Cables radiate from the Hub to drive motor, Hand Controller, Temperature Sensor, Power, & PC Cable as needed. Your hand controller thus has a single cable leading to it, keeping the set up tidy. An optional temperature probe assembly FTP-1 can be plugged into the hub to return temperature information to the ASCOM driver, so that supporting software can compensate focus during long exposures. |
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| DHC-1 Motorized Feather Touch Hand Controller
The DHC-1 lets you manually step the focuser in & out while displaying the current focuser position digitally. A high level of precision is achieved by ramping up the speed gradually as you hold the buttons down. Clicking the buttons without holding them down allows you to take micro steps to approach accurate focus. To suit differing preferences of individual users, two cable sockets have been provided at the top and bottom - you can plug the cable at either end. When using the focuser through the computer interface, you can still use the hand controller if you wish to. To control the Feathertouch focuser from your PC you must use an ASCOM compatible program like FocusMax or Maxim DL. ( For a full list of ASCOM compliant software, please visit here. )
Check our download page for information on how to get the most recent ASCOM platform and the Feather Touch Focuser Driver |
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| Component selection: If you intend to use the Digital Feather Touch strictly for CCD imaging, you will need a DSM-1 and a DH-1. If, in addition you use your system visually, you will also need the hand controller, DHC-1. This would also be the logical choice if you want to use your system for visual observation now, but anticipate CCD imaging in the future. | |
