ST4 cable

[bruno]

Hi All 

Do i need to connect my ST4 cable when i'm trying to guide the mount or can i just run a cable from the hand set & just plug the guide camera into the usb on my laptop. 

thanks for any replies

[Davey-T]

What guiding setup are you using ?

Dave

[bruno]

50mm guide scope & qhy5 L-ll or astro altair guide camera

[SkyBound]

You can do either, one way with ST4 cable or use pulse guiding with the guide camera and handset just connected to the PC, and no ST4 cabme used, but depending on what software you are using you have to tell that which way you are guidig and set up accordingly..  

[bruno]

i was going to use PHD, byeos

[SkyBound]

Well with PHD you can choose from the camera menu either the "on camera" guide option which is the ST4 or "Ascom" and choose your mount from the drop down menu,  in which case you will just connect the camera and scope handset to your PC, BUT if you choose this second option you will need the Ascom driver for your mount installed, from the Ascom website., this is known as pulse guiding and a lot of people say it's more accurate.

hope that helps

[bruno]

 the set BTW is 50mm guide scope & altair mono guide cam

 

[bruno]

i will check that out hopefully get my guiding going

[cjdawson]

It's also not an either or thing.  If you choose the On camera for the guiding, you can also have a secondary mount, which will allow PHD to read the values from the mount.

This means that you can guide with ST-4, but get some of the values read from the mount so that PHD can do all the calculations properly.

[Leveye]

Pulse guide using PHD2, CDC and ASCOM. Much more robust set up just IMHO.