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Guiding while Imaging


Figgis

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Dear All.

               I have a ZWO 462 that's good for Planetary Pics.  I wonder though, Is it possible to Guide and Image at the same time with just this Unit.  I have emailed ZWO, but as yet no reply, what do you guys think?   

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41 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

No

In fact, slightly yes....
Not actual mount tracking, but substitute...
If ROI imaging applied, you can set up FireCapture to track target to keep ROI central to target. I do not remember if FireCapture has options to send any corrections to the mount, but ROI tracking was usually enough if imaging is started with planet slightly off center of FOV
https://skyinspector.co.uk/firecapture-features-explainer/#ROI_Position

Edited by RolandKol
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10 minutes ago, RolandKol said:

In fact, slightly yes....
Not actual mount tracking, but substitute...
If ROI imaging applied, you can set up FireCapture to track target to keep ROI central to target. I do not remember if FireCapture has options to send any corrections to the mount, but ROI tracking was usually enough if imaging is started with planet slightly off center of FOV
https://skyinspector.co.uk/firecapture-features-explainer/#ROI_Position

Not really guiding - it is just correction after exposure has been taken. Mount tracks during exposure on its own - no corrections are performed when it counts.

In principle any software should be able to do it - regardless of ROI or full frame download.

 

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It will be interesting to see if sensor development will permit real time readout during exposure moving forward. This could potentially allow guiding from bright point sources from a single sensor during extended exposures. I'm sure there's associated issues with this though 😂

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3 minutes ago, 900SL said:

It will be interesting to see if sensor development will permit real time readout during exposure moving forward. This could potentially allow guiding from bright point sources from a single sensor during extended exposures. I'm sure there's associated issues with this though 😂

I saw a cam online around 3years ago, it was something like 5K USD, it had additional sensor built in and was advertised as 2in1.
Cannot find it anymore

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9 minutes ago, 900SL said:

It will be interesting to see if sensor development will permit real time readout during exposure moving forward. This could potentially allow guiding from bright point sources from a single sensor during extended exposures. I'm sure there's associated issues with this though 😂

Much more realistic scenario is very low read noise camera.

With long exposure and "real time readout" - you would get actual star in first readout, superposition of it and "next" one - in second read out, stack of 3 exposures in third readout and so on - as signal accumulates.

Much better idea is to have very low read noise camera and simply do following:

Say you happen to have 0.1e read noise camera and you read whole sensor every 1 second.

In regular exposure of say 256 seconds (which is about 4 minutes) - total "read noise" if each 1s sub was simply added without alignment would be x16 of one sub - so 0.1e x 16 = 1.6e of "read noise" - comparable to very good current cameras.

However, one could easily guide on such short exposures and even implement FWHM rejection filter for those short subs - effectively recording one "regular" sub when say certain number - again say 256 of these short subs is added up.

No additional memory would be needed (except for holding current frame) in camera - every readout would be inspected for star position and also added to "accumulator" image - after regular readout accumulator image would be reset to zero and process started again.

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9 hours ago, RolandKol said:

I saw a cam online around 3years ago, it was something like 5K USD, it had additional sensor built in and was advertised as 2in1.
Cannot find it anymore

Santa Barbara Instrument Group once offered a dual sensor camera with a KAF-3200E Kodak sensor and an integrated smaller sensor for guiding. It's main benefits were touted as immunity to flexure and it's compact size.

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2 minutes ago, Mandy D said:

Santa Barbara Instrument Group once offered a dual sensor camera with a KAF-3200E Kodak sensor and an integrated smaller sensor for guiding. It's main benefits were touted as immunity to flexure and it's compact size.

I think that they had a range of camera models with "OAG" type sensor integrated.

For example this one:

http://www.company7.com/library/sbig/pdffiles/cat_9xe.pdf

 

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21 hours ago, 900SL said:

It will be interesting to see if sensor development will permit real time readout during exposure moving forward. This could potentially allow guiding from bright point sources from a single sensor during extended exposures. I'm sure there's associated issues with this though 😂

It's been done!  Many years ago Starlight Xpress offered their STAR 2000 system which used half the pixels of an interlaced CCD chip as a guider.  Worked very well, the resolution was unchanged, but the sensitivity was halved, so a 10 minute guided exposure was the equivalent of 5 minutes unguided.  I used it with my MX716 camera.  Sample image here.  It is a single 20 minute image (equivalent to 10 minutes unguided) taken from Hexham Northumberland in June 2004.  Incidentally the sensitive  Sony ICX429AL chip used in the MX716 camera was later used in the original Starlight Xpress Lodestar.  From imager to guider!

Much depended on the interlaced chip construction. I haven't a clue whether such a method could be used on modern CCD or more importantly CMOS chips.  🤪

Cheers,

Peter

 

 

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