Please note that SpUpNIC extends far enough from the bottom of the telescope that the instrument could potentially collide with the north pier when pointing east between declinations of -60 and -80. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the telescope can only be used on the east side of the pier. The result is quite severe pointing restrictions in the east, unfortunately for a declination range that includes the Magellanic Clouds! One is able to auto-slew into that dec range up to an hour angle of -2, and extremely careful manual pointing done from the console on the telescope floor can gain an additional half an hour. The absolute pointing limits are thus -2.5 hours for declinations between -65 and -75.
'''''When pointing automatically from the control room, please take note of where the cyan star appears on the TCS crash-limits plot when you start the slew. If the telescope would need to move through that problem region, abort the auto slew and rather point manually using the console on the dome floor.'''''
[[File:pointing_limits.jpg|thumbnail]]