I wrote about GPS receiver in my CPC-800 telescope flipping out in the past, resulting in a need to periodically reset it. Crazy thing! Only this time around, I decided to add a light pipe! The GPS receiver allows the telescope to determine the current time and position, which it needs to do the rest of its “go-to” thing.
Seems like an annual or biennial event, but the GPS receiver quit again and I had to enter the time manually during the past few observing sessions. Oddly, the subject of the GPS receiver came up recently when I met the “occultation guy”, George from Lake Placid (more in another post). He depends on a GPS receiver for accurately time-stamping his occultation videos.
It’s not really a big deal to enter the time manually into the telescope controller, so I did that and moved on. But it bugs me whenever it happens. Fortunately, the telescope remembers it’s last location so I don’t have to enter that every time.
Recall, I installed a reset button a couple of years ago that could be pressed rather than holding a resistor across the super-capacitor. The super-capacitor holds the GPS memory between uses, and I decided that the memory periodically becomes corrupted for some unknown reason. Resetting the memory brings the GPS receiver back to life. I started this thread over on cloudynights.com about the issue. Resetting the GPS is still a bit of a pain though because I have to remove the plastic housing of the fork arm to expose the button.
The GPS receiver has a status LED but it can’t be seen since it’s hidden under the fork arm cover. It would be nice to see that. The light comes on solid when all is well, and blinks while searching for satellites. I’m not sure, but I think there are different blink patterns, too.
So this time around, I drilled a small hole in the fork arm cover to install a “light pipe”, a small clear piece of plastic that will let me see the LED. Check out this page, I have some nice pictures showing how it came out. Not like that will solve anything – it’s just a curiosity and a reassurance to see the light come on solid with the GPS locks onto the satellites and maybe to decipher any blink patterns. I thought about doing this before but was hesitant to drill a hole in the housing. No big deal though, it’s a small hole and the light pipe fit in there perfectly. Now I can call this hole a feature rather than a bug!
The Neophyte Astronomer 