Building a 10Micron mount model using N.I.N.A.

10Micron mounts provide the most accurate solution for pointing and tracking your telescope. Their technology makes guiding often not necessary thanks to the absolute encoders employed in their mounts.

These encoders allow you to build a star model: a map of the errors caused by flexure of the optical tube, movement of the mirrors, polar alignment error and so on. When the mount points to or tracks in a particular area of the sky, it adjusts the speed of its motors accordingly to the error measured while building the model. 

This is how it works step by step, utilizing a camera for plate solving:

1. The 10Micron mount will point to an area of the sky.
2. Using the camera connected to your telescope, the modelling software will capture an image to be plate solved.
3. The coordinates obtained from the plate solving are compared with the pointing coordinates of the mount. The difference between the two set of coordinates constitutes the error. 
4. The mount will repeat this procedure for up to 100 points in the sky, mapping the error and storing it in the mount's onboard memory.

The model can be used as long as the mount is not moved.

There are three main programs you can use to build the model: Model Creator, Mount Wizzard and our pick - the 10Micron mount plugin for N.I.N.A. Below is the step by step procedure to carry this out using N.I.N.A.

1. Assuming that you have installed all the necessary drivers and that you have connected your mount to your computer, connect all the equipment with N.I.N.A. For the actual plate solver software, I recommend ASTAP. Now focus your camera and set the correct focal length of your telescope.
2. In N.I.N.A., click on "Plugins" and download the 10Micron Tools: 

3. Open the ASCOM setting of the 10 Micron mount. You can access these settings from N.I.N.A. by navigating to Equipment > Telescope > gear icon:

4. Click through the below images to see the suggested settings for the 10Micron ASCOM driver. Specifically, it is important in the "Sync" window to disable the "Enable Sync" setting: 

5. In N.I.N.A., navigate to Options > Equipment > Telescope. Turn on "Do not Sync". As mount settling time, 2 seconds is generally sufficient:

6. In Plugins > Installed > 10Micron Tools, change the settings according to your preferences:
7. With N.I.N.A. you can create a virtual panorama that can be utilized to prevent the telescope from pointing to local obstructions such as trees, nearby houses, etc.
8. In the Imaging tab, open the window "10u Model Builder" and select your preferred number of measurement points. 

   The golden spiral option positions these points equally spaced in the sky and tends to work best:

   
9. Press play to begin creating the model. The mount will now slew to the points selected. For 50 points, the mounts takes approximately 20 minutes to complete the model.
10. Below is what the interactive window will look like once the mount has slewed to the selected points. The points that have been excluded or have failed to be measured will be marked red:

11. Once the model is complete, open the 10u model window. The measured points will automatically populate the Alignment Model section.

    The red points indicate those with the highest RMS. Eliminate one or more points that have a value much gather than all the others. Then save the model and you're ready to image!