PHD Guiding with a Lumenera Lu070M

[Stephen]

Just in case anyone happens to search for these terms, guess what? It is possible! Before I get told it's not a guide camera - I know! I'm working with what I have for now.

Now this doesn't come without caveats, but I managed 2 minutes exposures without any problems last night - then my power tank about died so I couldn't try to push it further.

Firstly, it is hard to find a guide star without proper guide rings. It is a much smaller sensor than a QHY5 (next on my S/H wanted list,) but if you pump the gain up and happen to be aiming in the right place you can find a guide star.

I had the diagonal (basic 90 degree one) in the ST80 as I wasn't sure where it would come to focus, but ended up with the focuser only about 1cm out.

I set PHD to 3s exposure and 3/4 gain on the camera control slider (sorry can't remember the value.) The camera to select is the Windows WDM (I will clarify this title later but it was something very like this) option. This was all used in conjunction with my DIY guide port and GPUSB on my basic HEQ5.