Sky X autoguiding

[gregbradley]

I was switching my system over the Sky X tonight after using the Sky 6.0 for several years. The Sky 6.0 is still installed on the same computer.

It all went smoothly until I tried to callibrate my autoguider when it activated the Sky 6.0 and came up with a connection error. It did the same when trying to autoguide.

When I shut down Sky X and used The Sky 6.0 it worked fine.
So it seems it defaults to The Sky 6.0.

Any suggestions?

Greg.

[bert]

what program are you using for autoguiding?

[Dennis]

I wonder if the auto guider system is attempting to auto guide via the ASCOM interface to the Sky X Pro, rather than the native auto guiding software that you normally use?

Cheers

Dennis

[Joshua Bunn]

Greg,

Are you using the camera addon or ccdsoft to control your camera and autoguider? If your were using ccdsoft, perhaps there is a setting in there that you need to change to make the software default to thesky X. Look under the preferences tab in the file menus from ccdsoft, there is an option in there to use TheSky X. Hey... i wouldn't think it would make a difference if your not using ccdsoft, but worth a shot.

Are you calibrating and guiding with directguide?

What camera do you have selected under the autoguider camera settup?

Josh

[gregbradley]

Thanks for the replies. I realised this morning in the shower what the problem was!

CCDsoft has a preference setting for Sky 6.0 or Sky X. I had it set to Sky 6.0 of course as that is what I have been using. I just changed it to Sky X and it should be all good now.

Thanks for the replies.

By the way Sky X performed fabulously last night. It was smooth and trouble free. I am used to it now with my PMX. I did 3 automated T-Point runs in 40 minutes and tweaked my Polar Alignment to the point where it said it was excellent and no more adjustment is required. I then ran the supermodel and the RMS went down to 44 RMS. Target objects were in the centre of the image at 3 metres focal length and Proline 16803. Wow.

Next time I will make a 300 point T-point model and try ProTrack guide corrections to see if I get even better round stars. I am getting round stars at 10 minutes, probably 30 minutes if I wanted.

Greg.

[frolinmod]

I'm quite envious!

I hope you'll try out the autoguiding feature in TheSkyX camera add on when you can.

[Joshua Bunn]

Great Greg,



What scope was this with Greg?

[Terry B]

Greg
I have been using TSXP with the camera add on for image capture now for a few months. It certainly works quite well. I have tried the guider as well but mostly just with my AO8 and not bothering to actually guide. This also works well and seems easly to calibrate.
The only glitch that I have had is with the timestamp in the fits header. When I am doing a time series of images, sometimes a number of images in a row will come out with the same time in the header. After about 4 or 5 images it corrects. This doesn't matter for pretty pics but is a problem for photometry.
Keep at it.
Cheers
Terry

[Paul Haese]

I have been considering making the move up to sky X from sky6. Can someone tell me if it will still do the guiding even if I use MaximDL? Does not using CCDsoft (I do have a copy I bought) have any down falls?

I was planning on getting Tpoint addon and the camera addon too.

[Joshua Bunn]

Hi Paul,

I dont have maxim, but ive been using the camera addon with TSX and Tpoint and guiding with the camera addon and i can say guiding through the camera addon works great. Doesnt really answer your question but just some info for you.

Josh

[Terry B]

Paul
I think it would work providing you are using a separate guide camera. You can't connect a camera to both programs so can't use an internal guider in one program and a capture with another program on the same camera. I have tried this using TSXP and audela as failed. I don't have maxim but can't see that it would be any different.
I must admit that I don't see much improvement using the camera add on vs CCDSoft with TSXP. The camera add on has more options with file naming and has a better system for automating multiple exposures but the pics turn out the same.

[cfranks]

I use TSX for just the mount control and have to use MaximDL for autoguiding as it is the only one (I have found) that will allow me to use the SX-AO with my Lodestar. One day, maybe, SB will have time to add that ability and then I can revert to a 'one-stop-shop'.
Paul, I think TSX includes the Tpont and Camera add-ons at no additional cost.

Charles

[frolinmod]

The Tpoint Add On and the Camera Add On are included inside TheSkyX and don't have separate downloads, but you do have to enable them with serial numbers which are not free, they do cost extra. If you buy a new MX or ME2 today those serial number are of course included with the mount. (Not so for ME mounts older than about 2011. Those came with legacy software.) Nice thing about the add ons is that they don't have separate subscription fees associated with them. Universal Subscription serial numbers also work. There's also a camera choice in the camera chooser that causes TheSkyX to use Maxim as your camera so that you can use any camera supported by Maxim. You can run TheSky6 and TheSkyX at the same time, just not with the same mount at the same time.

[cfranks]

I forgot they came with my MX!

Charles