MORAL Tracking mount

MORAL is an ALTAZ tracking mount for high performant tracking application. The system has been designed to satisfy high demanding requirements in terms of accuracy and velocity beeing able to slew up to 60°/s with 1 arcsec of mechanical precision, critical performances for space debris and fast object tracking (Space Situation Awareness). The idea of a flexible and affordable system makes MORAL a suitable solution for professional observatories. 

Pointing accuracy is one of the main aspect of a telescope mount. The lowest level of the pointing accuracy is the one measurable by the hardware used as feedback. Starting from this and arriving up to the telescope interfaces, multiple contributions occurs to degrade accuracy performances due to the complexity of mechanical manufacturing and other hardware components. That's why it is commonly necessary to exploit specific software that are able to correct all these effects and provide a good pointing accuracy. But the real mechanical pointing accuracy of the system is intrinsic in the mount mechanics and layout. In most cases, the pointing accuracy can be affected also by the operating regime of the machine.

MORAL has been designed to ensure an intrinsic high level of accuracy in all the operative condition. Thanks to the design and manufacturing strategy adopted, MORAL can in fact ensure a mechanical pointing accuracy of the payload below 1'' effectively measured and ensured without the need of any correction software. That's why we talk about mechanical pointing accuracy.