What is MaxPoint™?

MaxPoint™ is a telescope modeling and correction engine that can be used with any program which uses ASCOM telescope drivers. It sits between the client program (planetarium, MaxIm DL) and the actual telescope driver, and provides pointing corrections.

ACP has the MaxPoint modeling and correction engine built-in, providing automatic/adaptive modeling and pointing correction whenever the telescope is synced, and it operates continuously in learning mode. This provides ACP with an advantage over MaxPoint due to this level of integration. ACP does not, however, provide the full user interface and telescope analysis features of MaxPoint. To learn about ACP's built-in modeling and correction, see Using ACP's Pointing Corrector. For more information on MaxPoint, go to the Diffraction Limited web site.

Analyzing ACP Models

It is not necessary to use MaxPoint as a pointing corrector with ACP. However, MaxPoint has a very nice user interface that allows you to analyze your telescope's mechanical characteristics and alignment errors, as well as the mapping points that make up a pointing model.

As described on the Using ACP's Pointing Corrector page, ACP saves its model mapping points in a file that is compatible with MaxPoint. Thus, if you have MaxPoint, you can view and analyze the mapping points, errors, and mechanical characteristics of your mount using the adaptive models built by ACP!

On ACP's Telescope menu, there are options to load in a model and to save the current (active) model in a backup file. With these two options, you can make a copy of the active model and analyze it with MaxPoint, or load a model that you have manipulated in MaxPoint back into ACP for live use. MaxPoint calls these models "calibration" files; their names end in .clb.