CEM 60- Home, Zero and Park positions

[biswasg]

Can someone guide me to the three positions mentioned:
1. Home
2. Zero
3. Park

Photographs/illustrations would be great. Thanks

[KathyNS]

iOptron doesn't use the term "Home" position. Their "Zero" position is what other manufacturers call "Home": counterweights down, scope pointing at the pole. You can redefine it, but then you lose the handy "seek zero position" function.

Park position is a position where it will remember its orientation on the next startup. That means you do not have to do another alignment, provided you didn't release the gear switches since it was parked. A lot of astrophotography software can be set to park the mount automatically at the end of a sequence, which makes the park position useful even if you don't need it to remember its orientation.

The mount supports several park positions: Horizontal (east or west), for roll-off roof clearance, Vertical (east or west) for use with flat panels balanced on the aperture, the current position, whatever that is, or a user-defined position. I have defined my park position to be horizontal on the north side of the mount, which minimizes head-bonking in the observatory. If your software does an automatic park, the mount will park to whichever park position you last specified.