10 MICRON GM4000 HPS II

Testar Australia is a technical assistant dealer for 10 Micron. Our staff has been trained at the 10 Micron factory to provide assistance, repairs and maintenance on their products.

The GM4000 HPS mount, now in the new M2 version, is built for observatories with instruments up to 150kg (excluding counterweights). It is ideal for remote observation sites and its loading capacity allows for mounting instruments such as 300mm diameter refractors, 400mm diameter Newtonian reflectors, 600mm diameter Cassegrains and so on. Movements are driven by two servo brushless motors, with timing belt reduction having zero-backlash. Both axes feature a classic worm – wormwheel pairing. The wormwheels are made of bronze (B14), with a diameter of 330mm and 430 teeth in right ascension and a diameter of 244mm and 315 teeth in declination. The worms are made of alloy tempered steel with a diameter of 32mm. The axes are made of alloy steel with a diameter of 85mm (right ascension) and 80mm (declination), for the maximum rigidity.

The electronics are housed in an easily detachable housing (control box), mounted above the right ascension axis to obtain the best accessibility. The connections of the mount and keypad security lock screws and only one cable runs from the control box to the mount. The axes feature a 60mm diameter hole allowing for the passage of instrument cables. This effectively solves the problem of entangling cables and damaging instruments, especially for remote observatories. The mount is powered with low voltage, requiring a maximum power of about 100W. This makes it possible to use the mount in locations with limited power available. The GM4000 HPS can be completely controlled by using the included keypad without requiring an external PC.

The keypad is built to maintain the maximum readability in all lighting conditions. Both the display and the ergonomic keys, allowing for the use of gloves, feature a red backlight. A heater keeps the display warm for usage below freezing temperatures. The mount can be controlled by using the most common software packages by connecting it to a PC with a RS‑232 serial port or Ethernet connection, via the 10Micron ASCOM driver or the Meade compatible command protocol. Further, a dedicated software (also included with the mount) can be used to create a “virtual keypad”, precisely replicating the functions of the physical keypad. The RS‑232 port can also be used to control an external dome. This flexibility makes the GM4000 HPS an ideal mount for observatories and remote observing sites.

The object database contains many star catalogues and deep‑sky objects up to the 16th magnitude. Solar system objects can be tracked so that their motion is compensated with respect to the stars. You may load orbital elements of comets, asteroids and artificial satellites into the mount so that these objects can be tracked directly.

Pointing is made accurate through the usage of a model containing up to 100 stars, which allows for the correction of the classical polar alignment and conic errors as well as the most important flexure terms of the optical tube. In this way it is possible to obtain a pointing accuracy up to 15 arcseconds RMS. The same model can be used to obtain the maximum tracking accuracy, compensating also for the atmospheric refraction (depending on the local atmospheric pressure and temperature). A series of auxiliary functions is provided to help the user to a quick alignment of the mount to the celestial pole. You may also save and recover the alignment data of different observing sessions. This function is very useful if you have many instruments in different setups, each one requiring different flexure corrections. Tracking through the meridian, a typical problem with German mounts, is solved to allow for tracking of up to 30° past the meridian (configurable) in both directions. In this way any object can be tracked for at least four hours.

The tracking accuracy makes auto-guiding not necessary for many uses. The absolute encoders on both axes allows to obtain a typical tracking error below 1 arcsecond.

It is possible to auto-guide anyway by using the ST4‑compatible port or through the serial/Ethernet connection with a guide rate configurable from 0.1x to 1x. The guide rate can be automatically corrected for the declination of the target, so that there is no need to recalibrate the auto-guide when observing at different declinations. A dedicated connector on the control box panel is used for remote switching on and off. The instrument can be electronically balanced without disengaging the worm from the wormwheel. The mount can be parked in different user‑defined positions. The serial RS‑232 port can be used to control an external dome, avoiding the need for a dedicated external PC. Once configured with your instrument parameters, the firmware is able to make all the calculations required to position the dome slit in front of your optical tube for almost all instrument configurations.

The GM4000 can be supplied also in a special version for very low temperature operations: ask our team if interested.

GM4000 HPS II Mount includes:

• GM 4000 HPS II mount with built-in precision absolute encoders
• Control box with on-board intelligence (Linux-processor),V. 2
• HPS version firmware, stand alone system (no PC required)
• Professional hand control unit with graphic display and temperature control – 10M5030
• Cables
• Counterweight shaft
• WiFi option included.