Manually guiding with Star Adventurer

[Stardweller]

Hello, 

I am thinking of buying SW Star Adventurer and wanted to know about a feature of it. I know that it can be used with an autoguider but I would like to be able to make corrections manually. I have a Celestron RJ-11 keypad (for RA-Dec)  from the early 90's which I used for astrophotography with film cameras. Does anybody have experience with connecting a keypad to the ST4 port. Does it work?  would it be possible to short-circuit the electronics?

Thank you,

Paul

[wimvb]

The Star Adventurer only has one motor (RA), so any guiding can be on that axis only.

I connected electronics to my EQ3 Pro guiding port, but used optocouplers to protect the guiding port of the mount.

To be on the safe side, I would recommend you to do something similar.

Hope this helps

[Stardweller]

Hi Wim,

Could you please recommend compatible optocouplers? 

Thank you

Paul

[wimvb]

I used these in my project

FOD817B

They should be readily available from any local/global supplier.

Just make sure that you have a resistor between the celestron keypad and the led in the optocoupler. The value of this will depend on the keypad output voltage.

The output of the optocoupler is directly connected to the guide port of the mount. Four optocouplers are used, one per guide pin. Emitters (pin 3) on the output side are connected to common ground.

 

Good luck