Planet imaging with a Toucam and guiding

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

I recently discovered that K3CCD tools will guide using the same camera that is doing the imaging. This is really useful if you have piled on loads of magnification for imaging a planet as any drift is hugely eggagerated because of the image scale.

Once I got Saturn on the chip, starting with no Barlow, then 2X and finally 4X, I very carefully lined up the finder. This gets slightly out of line on my kit whenever I add a Barlow lens, unless it's just that I don't line it up spot on. This is so that if the guiding or whatever messes up you can reaquire the image (relatively) easily enough. Once you have the image centred, select a slow slew rate and use the left and right buttons to move the image around the screen. You need to rotate the webcam in the focuser until this moves the planet across the screen with little or no up and down movement. Switching on the cross hair reticle is good for this, or you can open the drift explorer pane which puts the cross hairs on and gets ready for the next step.

To do the guiding I use an Astronomiser parallel port adapter with a cable from that to the EQ6 Skyscan head. I've found that if I connect the lead before doing the alignment and stuff the mount doesn't like it and can act oddly. I therefore leave the lead disconnected from the mount until the target is in sight. Ace focus is not necessary at this point.

Open the guiding pane on K3CCD and set all the parameters low apart from the interval which I set at 2000 (2 seconds). This should prevent the guiding from zooming the planet off screen with a single guiding pulse and make it have to try hard to move it even slowly.

Once you have got the settings entered, click the top left cross-hair icon in the guiding pane and then click on your planet. A square box should appear around the planet if it has decided to guide on it, that's good. You should also see some graphs being drawn showing any deviation from the start position. Let it settle down and watch to see the general trend i.e. how much things are going off by without guiding.

Click to check the guide box, you should be able to see the arrow icons (bottom right in the guiding pane) flashing red when a guide pulse is given. From now on be ready to click on the box to stop guiding as things can go wrong here.

You need to check that the guiding is going in the correct direction now, so use the handpad to go left or right a small amount. This will show up as a big blip in the RA graph. If the guiding is in the right direction the graph should start to move back towards the centre zero line. If it keeps going away from the line, click the icon to reverse the RA pulses (Top line, marked RA and a double ended horizontal arrow). This should make the graph line go the other way and head back towards the zero line. If it does then that's sorted.

Next do the same for the Dec. by moving up or down a short distance with the handpad. If the correction is in the wrong direction, click the Dec. reverse button to sort it out. This will only be necessary if you have clicked on the DEC control box and it has a tick in it, it's as easy to have it going as not, so I use it all the time. You might not need this so try both ways.

Once you have the guiding running you can leave the 'scope tracking and imaging for as long as you have clear skies and your target planet will still be on the chip.

Hope this helps somebody.

Captain Chaos

[geppetto]

Hope this helps somebody

Bound to, nice one CC, thanks for sharing the knowledge 8)

[Chubster]

To do the guiding I use an Astronomiser parallel port adapter with a cable from that to the EQ6 Skyscan head

Morning CC. Happy Easter. I saw this on K3CCD but didnt think it was something I could use. Will I be able to us this function with the HEQ5 Mount?

If you are autoguiding how accurate does your polar aligning have to be ?

Looked on Astronomiser, but cant work out what cable I will need. I dont have a parallel port. Will I also need this? The Guide Port Interface

Sorry for all the questions......Oh did I say Happy Easter

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Morning Chub, and happy chocolate day to you too.

Good polar aligning is required as you need to have the planet staying almost where it is when you set up the guiding. You don't want to have to go fetch it too many times whilst messing with all the other gear.

The HEQ5 goto mounts have a guider input near the on / off switch.

I'm not sure what cables and stuf you will need as I got all the kit from Ambermile with the EQ6 goto. Talk to Andy at Astrnomiser and he'll sell you the stuff that you need, USB adapter and all.

HTH

Captain Chaos

[Chubster]

and happy chocolate day to you too

:pukeleft: Girlfriend went a bit mad...been finding eggs of various sizes all of the house !

Cheers I will give Andy a ring on Tuesday.

What version of K3ccd are you using.

Open the guiding pane on K3CCD and set all the parameters low apart from the interval which I set at 2000 (2 seconds)

but when I open mine all I get is this and there is nowhere to enter any settings

Cheers again

Chub

[Chubster]

I dont seem to have a ON/Off switch on the mount or a guiding port? All I have is a jack where the hand controller goes in and the hole for the power ?

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

You might need the paid for version, about £20 or so, then open the drift explorer from the main page. It looks like a little graph, third tab from the right. Then play with the settings until it just works. A bit of wandering about is a good thing as the dust bunnies get spread about and lost.

I dont seem to have a ON/Off switch on the mount or a guiding port? All I have is a jack where the hand controller goes in and the hole for the power ?

If you don't have the goto version, you won't have the guider input. There might be a doodah out there that you put in between the handset and the mount, but I don't know where you'd get one. Astronomiser would be my first guess but I don't see one on the site.

Captain Chaos

[proflight2000]

Many thanks for all that captain, I have just agreed a buy for a goto for my heq and will get k3ccd when its all up and running. I tried a few pictures using a toucam last night of Saturn, I used a x2 barlow and to be honest the picture could be seen to be saturn at a distance but close up was abysmal.

Could I just ask, will K3CCD track the object for me via the toucam/scope? or is it just a case of hoping the scope keeps reasonable alignment with a few button presses here and there.

Thanks as k3ccd is quite a learning kerb and thats only the freebie 1.1 version.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

If you have a guide output from your computer (talk to Astronomiser) then yes, K3CCD will keep the target centred. In fact it is as we "speak".

Captain Chaos

[proflight2000]

brilliant thanks, i will have a look.

[proflight2000]

just out of curiosity, i have a toucam, what is best for the toucam to image, i put a 1:25 screw in bit for it that goes staight into my eyepiece holder after ive unscrewed the toucams lens. Just need now to find out the basics.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Its best to have an IR & UV bocking filter as they focus differently to visible light, but get picked up by the Toucam. This shows up as a partially out of focus image. Never noticed a difference myself, but then I'm not any good at planets.

Captain Chaos