From Bad to V Bad...

[Mac]

Well a few nights off, and clear skies, hurah.

Set up This afternoon and took some photos of that large yellow thing,
Quite a nice grouping of sun spots.

Single Image



Left it all set up and ticking along nicely,

Need to stack the images, but i'll do that later.

Went out tonight to do some more of Andromeda,

Started to calibrate the guiding, using Maxim

Guiding problems , the scope was not moving or was moving less then 5 pixels,

Eventual traced the problem to the fact that the guide cable has been ripped out of its plug at some point. Dont know if it was today or the last time.

I had the Loadstar set up in maxim as a guider controlling the telescope via guider relays, this worked without major problems.

It was done this way as i could never get the loadstar to guide the scope via Ascom.

now the cable is totally useless, I need to get the scope to guide using the Loadstar and Ascom.

Any ideas as to how to set the Loadstar up with Maxim using Ascom to guide the scope?
I also use my H9 with Maxim via Ascom.

Each time ive tried to set it up i've never managed to get it to work.

I was going to continue tonight, but the clouds rolled in.

If you remember Chris, we tried it when we had the DSC at your garden and even then it still wouldnt play ball.

Might have to find the manuals and have a read.

Oh and to add insult to injury, for some reason my mound had managed to shift down about 3 degrees, which also sort of messed up the guiding,
but that one was easily sorted out.

Cheers

Mac.

[Rocket Pooch]

Well if you put your mount on a mound what do you expect.

As for ASCOM, hmmm, do you have the latest version and have you tried PHD I think it supports a loadstar?

Chris

[Mac]

My Ascom should be upto date, but i'll check,
I'll have a look at the PHD with the Loadstar,
but if i remember when i used that it didnt support binning with the loadstar.

I'll have a look when i get another clear night.

Mac.

[mickw]

SGL have some posts about issues with PHD and Lodestar
Just google - PHD Lodestar - to bring up a bunch

[RobertM]

Hi Mac,

I use the lodestar with maxim to guide without a guider cable through both the ASCOM Temma and HEQ6 EQMOD interfaces.  I'll send you some snips of the setup screens tonight.

I've found any problems I've had with the lodestar are down to not being able to supply enough voltage/current.  If connected through a hub then it definitely needs to be powered + make sure they are good quality USB2 cables to prevent too much volt drop as the camera seems to draw towards the top end of the 500mA USB2 is rated at.


Robert

[Mac]

Cheers for that.

I dont use a Hub for the loadstar, its normally plugged straight in.
The only hub i have is a USB2 for the H9,

Mac.

[RobertM]

Mac,

If you PM me your email address then I'll send those snips.

Robert