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Guiding and ASCOM - Confused ....


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Hello,

I think this should be an easy question to answer, but I have got confused. I have a simple finderscope as a guider with a QHY5LII camera. I am going to try and use PHD2. I also use EQMOD to control everything. Now from what I understand there are two ways to connect to my HEQ5 pro mount:

  1. Use an ASCOM-compatible telescope driver that sends guide commands to the mount over a serial cable (or more commonly,  a USB/Serial connection)
  2. Use the ST-4 compatible guide port interface on the mount with a specialized cable and an intermediates device like a camera or a Shoestring box

So if I am using ASCOM to connect all I need is the cable from the guider to the laptop with EQMOD\ASCOM controlling ? - (i.e. I do not need the cable from the camera to ST-4 connection). Is this correct ?

Thanks

Alistair

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Hi Alistair, not sure about the setup on a HEQ5 but I have a QHY5 11 and have one cable to the laptop and the other to the mount. On PHD I connect the camera and then click 'mount' and click on 'on camera'. PHD does it all. I tried ascom and eqmod but my laptop got a little confused with it all, so did I. Of course, to find something to image, I've got to go outside and use the handset but hey, can't win 'em all!!!

Just by the way, how do you find clip filter?

Regards,

Phil

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I tried 'on camera' with my heq5 and finder guider combo and phd(1 or 2) did not play ball.

It would not guide north/south.

I switched to pulse guiding and hey presto. You need to turn pulse guiding on in the eqmod toolbox first.

This methid does away with the st4 cable (which was probably my issue).

You choose ascom camera and ascom heq5/6 in the connections when starting phd2.

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Really strange. Lots of people swear by pulse guiding. Spookily I can't even download PHD2, there's a nasty clang and a weird, very technical message that I have no idea what is meant. Computer says nah!!!

P.

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Really strange. Lots of people swear by pulse guiding. Spookily I can't even download PHD2, there's a nasty clang and a weird, very technical message that I have no idea what is meant. Computer says nah!!!

P.

Have you enabled it in Eqmod toolbox.

I had not initially and it said my mount was not supported.

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I used to use the st4 cable. At sgl10 I had loads of trouble but thanks to our very own steppenwolf, I (well steve actually) removed the s4 cable and set things up for me and since then I've never had a problem. Less cables used means less cables to fail :).

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Really strange. Lots of people swear by pulse guiding. Spookily I can't even download PHD2, there's a nasty clang and a weird, very technical message that I have no idea what is meant. Computer says nah!!!

P.

I think you can pulse guide in phd1 also.

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