Auto Guiding

[hornedreaper33]

Hey!

So I was watching a video on YouTube last night from Forrest Tanaka about the basics of AP. For his demo on auto guiding he was using an Orion Starshoot. This was a fairly simple affair, one cable speaking to the laptop and on speaking to the mount. Today, out of interest I was browsing the options and I noticed that the Atik GP only has 1 USB port on the back. Do you then have to have another USB to RJ12 coming from your laptop in order for the Atik solution to work??

One other question; what guiders do people tend to recommend?

 

Thanks!

[iapa]

I've been using either

• Touptek GCMOS mono or
• QHY 6

with PHD 2

Both have USB and ST4 ports, however, with the correct ASCOM drivers, PHD can provide better control that using ST4.

Bit late for me to dig specific references, but, if you take a look a the PHD Guiding and PHD2 Guiding sites, you should find some useful info.

There are also a couple of youtube posts by Craig Stark (original developer) and Andy Galasso (part of team who picked up the reins).

[Cornelius Varley]

27 minutes ago, hornedreaper33 said:

Hey!

So I was watching a video on YouTube last night from Forrest Tanaka about the basics of AP. For his demo on auto guiding he was using an Orion Starshoot. This was a fairly simple affair, one cable speaking to the laptop and on speaking to the mount. Today, out of interest I was browsing the options and I noticed that the Atik GP only has 1 USB port on the back. Do you then have to have another USB to RJ12 coming from your laptop in order for the Atik solution to work??

One other question; what guiders do people tend to recommend?

 

Thanks!

For cameras that only have a usb port (no ST4 guide port) the guiding connection to the mount is a little different. It is not possible to connect the laptop to the mount directly so an autoguiding interface is required example. The autoguider is connected between the usb port on the laptop and ST4 port on the mount.

[rigradio]

5 hours ago, hornedreaper33 said:

One other question; what guiders do people tend to recommend?

Source

Avoid BLUE!
Your choices depends on budget & guide scope:
- Orion SSAG Pro Mono ~ QHY5L-II ~ ASI120
- Lodestar X2
- ASI174 ~ QHY5-III

[kirkster501]

Pulse guiding is your answer.  Just connect the guide camera back to the PC via USB and use PHD2 SW.  Forget the ST4 port completely.

I use a QHY5 and a Celestron 80mm Guidescope.  This does not have to cost a lot and it is the biggest improvement you can make to get your subs sharper and to stop wasting so many subs.

[iapa]

4 hours ago, kirkster501 said:

......it is the biggest improvement you can make to get your subs sharper and to stop wasting so many subs.

+1 for sharpening subs.

Even if you just cant get long exposure, 60-90 are still much better.

[Starwiz]

21 hours ago, hornedreaper33 said:

One other question; what guiders do people tend to recommend?

I've been happy using the ASI120mc, which I also use for planetary. 

John

[The-MathMog]

21 hours ago, rigradio said:

Avoid BLUE!
Your choices depends on budget & guide scope:
- Orion SSAG Pro Mono ~ QHY5L-II ~ ASI120
- Lodestar X2
- ASI174 ~ QHY5-III

Rookie question. What does the QE percentage stand for?

[AKB]

Quantum Efficiency... how well it converts photons to electrons.  Bigger is better.