Auto Guiding

[pizwiz]

With winter upon us and the prospect of weeks of cloudy skies on end here on the Shore of Lake Ontario, I figured it is finally time to learn how to set up my scope for auto guiding.
To keep things simple, and concentrate on the autoguiding aspect, I will use the following setup for purposes of discussion.
150mm F/8 Refractor as the imaging scope.
80mm F/5 Refractor as the guide scope piggybacked on the 150mm and mounted in adjustable rings.
Orion Atlas GT Mount.
Dell 1.2GHZ Laptop dedicated for Astronomy work only.
The Laptop has an IMPERX Frame grabber installed in a PCIA slot for video work.
"The Sky 6" Planetarium software.
"AstroArt3" Imaging software.
Here is what I have gleaned from reading so far:
I hook up a guiding camera to the guidescope.
Hook up the imaging camera to the main scope.
The mount is hooked up to the laptop's serial port via the RS232cable and the handcontroller set to RS232 Mode.
The Starlight express MX-5c guide Camera has a parallel cable as it's output. It obviously needs to be hooked up to the laptop's Parallel Port and inserted in the guidescope's focuser.
What gets hooked up to the mount's guide port?
Do I run the "Sky" program for mount control and simultaneously run "AstroArt" for imaging? I know there is a Sky Atlas in AstroArt, but I find that I have a lot of trouble using it.
Let's say for the moment that the Imaging camera is a 35mm SLR, so we wont have to worry about how it is connected and can concentrate on the guiding hookup and function.
You would be correct in assuming that I know nothing about this subject and start from scratch.
Thanks for any and all info you can share to get me started. Nothing is cast in stone, if the MX5 camera is unsuitable for guiding, say so, you're not going to hurt my feelings.
Thanks in advance.

Adolph

[KenMiller]

I too just got started with auto-guiding. Here's what I think I've figured out thus far:

Guiding was first accomplished via dedicated hardware that required a port on the mount to provide feedback. The mount wasn't driven by any external software - it just ran - and the guider provided corrections to the mount via the guide port.

Today, we often drive the mount with software (TheSky, Starry Night, etc.).

Instead of guiding feedback being provided through the mount's guide port, it can be provided to the software already connected to the mount.

In this configuration, you specify your guide camera to the software which then sends the guide corrections via its already-established interface with the mount.

[Spoonsize]

Adolph:
I'm not familiar with your setup, but I know that for guiding alone, the software mentioned here get's good reviews....
http://www.astroclassifieds.com/foru...126/index.html
I do not know if it will work with the MX series cameras...
Steve

[budguinn]

I have been using AstroArt for my guiding software for about three years, and it works perfectly.

How is your mount now connected to you laptop.....can you move it with "the sky"?...if so then you should be able to use the same connection to move it with AstroArt.

You need to go to the telescope setup panel in the CCD GUI for AA3. Choose your mount or Ascom driver...probably the same thing that you chose in "the sky"....choose the port that your mount is hooked to...
then you'll need to go to the "move" tab in the telescope panel and see if you can control the scope.
Once you've got the right ascom driver or mount selected you should be able to try using the guiding stuff.
The help files have pretty good information on this....and the AA yahoo group is also very helpful with these questions.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/A...guid=133650339

You must be patient, and expect to take many hours of playing to get it right......just the nature of this hobby to getting everything working together.

The MX5C should work very nicely as your guide camera.

bud

[Gary Beal]

Hi Adolph
the above advice all stands.
I think however there should be a connection between your mount (or mount hand controller) and the camera, or the interface that fits between your camera and the PC. It will be an RJ11 or similar, like a telephone plug connection. The camera will tell the computer that the guidesta has drifted, and the computer will tell the mount to move. I don't the the DB9/RS232 does the communication. What is attached to the MX5C, apart from the parallel cable, where does the parallel cable go to?
Gary

[pizwiz]

Thank you fellows.
Ok, forgetting about imaging for the moment, I normally operate the mount from the laptop using "The Sky6" software. The serial port of the laptop is connected to the RS 232 port on the hand Controller. I can then simply click on any object on display in the laptop and the mount will then slew to the object on command.
All of that works fine.
Is it possible that the guiding info is also sent to the mount via this link? Then what is the guide Port for on the mount's panel?

Adolph

[KenMiller]

Originally Posted by pizwiz

Is it possible that the guiding info is also sent to the mount via this link? Then what is the guide Port for on the mount's panel?
Adolph

Yes.

It's there for historical reasons. See my post above.

[budguinn]

Originally Posted by pizwiz

Thank you fellows.
Ok, forgetting about imaging for the moment, I normally operate the mount from the laptop using "The Sky6" software. The serial port of the laptop is connected to the RS 232 port on the hand Controller. I can then simply click on any object on display in the laptop and the mount will then slew to the object on command.
All of that works fine.
Is it possible that the guiding info is also sent to the mount via this link? Then what is the guide Port for on the mount's panel?

Adolph

You were asking about AA, and I believe that it will use the same hookup as "the sky".

bud

[pizwiz]

OK fellows, Thank you for the replies.
Please bear with me, I describe myself often as "Digitally Challenged" meaning I know diddly about software and how it all interconnects.
I am busy reading the help sections for the CCD interface of AA3 and am slowly seeing what has been mentioned here. If I read the diagrams and the directions correctly, I can even manually guide the scope from AA3. I found some of the menus for that purpose when going through the imaging plug-ins.
Is it true that i could even use a webcam for guiding?
(Not that i necessarily want to, just curious)
I downloaded a plug-in for what was listed as suitable for webcams and unzipped it in the AA3 folder, but have not been able to get it to work.
Anyway, I am now going to try to see if I can control the mount with the manual commands in AA3.
The Atlas uses a Celestron Non-GPS type interface protocol which is available in AA3, so I have high hopes that it will work.
Wish me luck fellows.

Adolph

[Spoonsize]

Adolph:
IF you have a webcam, you MUST try the PHD program for guiding. You will have to use a fairly bright star, but if you are carefully polar alligned you'll be able to use a longer time between guide commands and the star you use for guiding will show up better, if you get my "drift".
Steve