Lodestar autoguide camera.

[ollypenrice]

I usually use Atik16ic cameras for guiding and find them excellent. However, my ludicrously expensive Takahashi mount has never responded well to guiding and as one of the venerable Atiks may have a tired plug I thought I'd try an entirely new autguide system and ordered a Lodestar from the infallible Ian King. I'll get Atik to change the ST4 plug on the older camera.

As you can see, the Lodestar is almost absurdly tiny, never widening beynond 1.25 inches. A hapless owner might end up with it inside his scope! It is USB powered so out went one cable, which is always nice! In the pic it is almost covered by the wiggle-preventing gaffa tape.

It fired up in PHD very happily but PHD wouldn't talk to the Tak mount. I'd foolishly selected 'Temma by Takahashi' under the 'Mount' tab but the fast-responding Terry Platt of SX put me right on that. I should have connected to something called 'On camera' instead of Takahshi. (???) Why are wanton obfuscation and software so often bedfellows? Moving on...

In AstroArt I needed drivers from the AA site. These insisted on putting themselves in a sub directory in which they wouldn't work and had to be dragged screaming and kicking into the main AA drivers directory where they did work. Note that neither of these software oddities involve SX software but Terry was good enough to advise despite this fact.

Focus on an ED80 is about 13.5 cm behind the end of the focuser so I used two de lensed Barlows, one Araldited in a no nonsense manner into the other one. This is a very stiff system showing no sign of flexure anywhere. Right next to the full moon there were half a dozen guide stars to choose from on the large Lodestar chip and, Zeus be praised, the Tak ticked away as good as gold.

I like the Lodestar. Once 'softwared up' it was entirely boring, just what you want of a guider. Recommended. Autoguiding is not, in my view, a place for faffing about with compromises. It's hard enough without them.

Olly

[MjrTom]

Great mini review Olly

[JamesF]

As you can see, the Lodestar is almost absurdly tiny, never widening beynond 1.25 inches. A hapless owner might end up with it inside his scope!

Would it make sense for potentially hapless owners to buy a parfocal ring at the same time and use it to stop the camera accidentally dropping down the focus tube as the result of a momentary loss of concentration? Or do you think you'd have to be exceptionally hapless for that to be likely to occur?

James

[Earl]

Silver Gaffer tape!!!, do you want some cable ties !!!?

[mftoet]

I love the Lodestar. Ain't cheap, but absolutely worth the money.

Instead of the stacked Barlows and fully rejected focuser, you mights want to consider putting a prism/diagonal in the focuser. It will lower the risk of flexure. I only use off-axis guiding nowadays. The Lodestar is sensitive enough to always show a guidestar in the field of view.

[Martin-Devon]

I do the same as what Maurice (mftoet) describes above - just simply put the Lodestar into the diagonal supplied with my ST80 - by doing this I can achieve focus very easily without need for additional spacers/empty Barlow tubes etc. My Lodestar interfaced and worked perfectly first time with PHD for guiding and has so far been troublefree.

[ollypenrice]

Silver Gaffer tape!!!, do you want some cable ties !!!?

No, cable ties will slip! However nasty my solutions might appear they are always considered!

Olly

[syd_malicious]

I have a Lodestar (and am happy with it) but just to mention a couple of things

1. you need a decent voltage/current to run it adequately. A single cable from your computer should be fine but anything longer and you would be best with a powered hub.
   
2. MaximDL works fine with it but some settings are a bit cryptic - don't know if it applies to the latest version of Maxim but on some older ones (even earlier v5 releases) the stars could look really bizarre as you need to check the "swap even and odd rows".
   

Paul

[ollypenrice]

Thanks Paul. I have a hooror of powered hubs as yet another USB device to act the goat (and take all the others with in it one fell swoop!) so I hope that the single cable will continue to work...

In AstroArt the Lodestar, but no other cameras I use, are offered a strange capture option called Hires Fast which looks like binning on one axis and not the other. (At my place this is a binning mode named after the guest who accidentally invented it when shooting the Horsehead!) Terry Platt suggested that it was intended to give higher pixel resolution on the RA axis with the camera duly orientated that way. I can't see myself trying it though. I just used Bin2.

Olly

[syd_malicious]

Olly,

With sub-pixel guiding now the norm I can't see the astroart option being much use, but I've never used astroart though . The Lodestar works fine with Maxim the way I have it set now.

Paul

[steppenwolf]

Olly, I have a suggestion that might help with the further rigidity of your system as the current weak-point is the 1.25" EP holder in the end of the second lensless Barlow. A neat solution would be to use what I have just started to use and make use of the 'C' thread in the nose of the Lodestar - obtain a 'C' to 'T' thread adapter like this one made by Telescope Service which will screw into the front of your Lodestar and then onto the exposed thread at the top of your Barlow and, as they say in your parts, voilà !

[ollypenrice]

Aha, thanks, Steve. Interesting!

Olly

[gbealnz]

And if your mount supports PulseGuiding, that eliminates the troublesome guide cable (still need the USB though). I use mine like that, with EQASOM.

Gary

[ollypenrice]

That's the second reference to Pulse Guiding I've come across. I know nothing whatever about it so will do a bit of Googling. Thanks, Gary.

Olly

[steppenwolf]

Pulse guiding certainly has some advantages over the rather 'clunky' ST4 interface - particularly the lack of one cable - but not all mounts feature it. As for wheter you actually get better guifing or not, I'm not currently convinced but it certainly works well on the EQ6/HEQ5 with EQMod running.

[chrisshillito]

That's the second reference to Pulse Guiding I've come across. I know nothing whatever about it so will do a bit of Googling. Thanks, Gary.

Olly

Hi Olly,

Take a look at this EQMOD project guiding document. Naturally it is rather aimed at EQMOD users but there is a general overview and comparision/discussion of ST4 and ASCOM Pulse Guide methods.

Chris

[Coco]

Great write up Olly...

Oh and love that string too... Monique now getting involved