"Data farming V1369 Cen + AA5 slit guiding

[Merlin66]

I'm finally pleased to say I managed to get the latest AstroArtV5 "slit guiding" set-up to work!!!
My problems were related to the EQMod settings!
I'd like to thank Paolo and Fabio for the support, help and assistance.

Reasonable night down here - bright moon but nova pretty easy to guide on with 1sec and the Lodestar. "data farming" at Hb, Na and Ha.

[NickK]

I'm finally pleased to say I managed to get the latest AstroArtV5 "slit guiding" set-up to work!!!

My problems were related to the EQMod settings!

I'd like to thank Paolo and Fabio for the support, help and assistance.

Reasonable night down here - bright moon but nova pretty easy to guide on with 1sec and the Lodestar. "data farming" at Hb, Na and Ha.

So the slit guiding is a reflective slit, the guide camera guides off the star using FHWM, but keeping the centre on the slit?

[Gasman]

What problems were you having Ken?. I seemed to get the slit part working ok but the guiding was a bit hit and miss!. I do tend to find the guiding in AA5 a bit iffy sometimes it works great sometimes its all over the place even with the same object a night later? maybe my EQMod settings want a tweak?

Steve

[Merlin66]

Nick,

Yes. The slit plate is a chromed glass plate with an etched slit gap. The target star is focused onto the slit plate and positioned onto the slit gap. The reflected image is focused into a guide camera which "locks on" and holds the target accurately on the slit for the duration...

Steve,

That sounds like my previous experiences....

I set the guide rate in EQMod to 0.75 sidereal and used the AA5 guide "Automatic Calibration" to confirm the RA/Dec directions (relative to the slit height) and the guide speed (pixel/ sec) Ended up with 0.7 pixel/ sec in RA and 1.8 pixel/ sec in Dec.

Touch wood it worked 100% all night.

I was impressed!