Lodestar question

[allan gould]

Ive just received my lodestar guider and I have a question that is puzzling me.
I see it has a USB cable to connect to the computer as well as a cable to connect to the guideport of my mount.
However in the manual as well as some comments Ive seen in IIS say that it can be controlled by one cable.
If Im correct this means that I connect the camera by usb to my laptop and connect the guideport of the mount through a GPUSB Shoestring box which is connected to the laptop through a USB hub.
Is this correct or do I have to connect the guide port of the camera to the guideport on the mount directly thus using the two cables to the camera?

[bmitchell82]

Allan, what mount are you using?

Alot of imagers are now using Pulse guiding tech, which is exactly what the loadstar is refering to aka. the usb is to get the data from the chip of the guide cam to maxim/phd what ever for analysis, then though the computer to the mounts normal control is where the guiding commands come down.

Its far better and allows better control from what i have been told. I don't know any different as i have used EQmod and pulse guiding since day dot.

I have a USB dedicated to the guider and ccd and one cable for the mounts hand paddle to the pc. all power sits directly below so i have 3 USB cables only that extend from the mount/telescope. I could drop that down further but because im fussy I like to keep the data streams seperated to avoid conflicts in I/O and emf noise issues

[RickS]

Allan,

If you already have your computer driving a goto mount via a serial cable, you can use this to send the guide commands and only need the one (USB) cable to the Lodestar. That's how I do it using Maxim (Autoguider control via Telescope setting).

Cheers,
Rick.

[allan gould]

Thanks for the replies Brendan and Rick.
Brendan at the moment I have a losmandy G11 and can either use pulse guiding through Losmandy gemini via ascom or a GPUSB connection to the st4 port using my DSI II Pro camera which only has a usb connection to the computer.
Currently Im using PHDGuiding which recognises the Lodestar but Im not sure if I can guide thru the mounts serial connection a la Maxim using PhDGuiding.

[bmitchell82]

Ill be super honest with you if you have maximdl ditch PHD, maxim is alot better allowing you to make changes on the fly so you can see the difference in what your doing. calibration of your guiding camera at worst will take you 30-40 seconds pointing around say crux. pointing around east or west you will be looking at more like 20 seconds as it only has to move 5 px left right up down to form a L shape not a + shape like PHD. Further to that you can see what arc second your errors are relating to which is handy. :)

I know Maximdl supports the Dsi 2. it has its own drop down box. and i know maxim and gemini work well so there isn't any reason not to do it. plus it removes one more program from the mix.

If you get stuck and want a tutorial on how to guide with maxim dl tonight im going to try and get out to do some imaging but it wont be till about 9pm WST. You can log into my imaging PC and see what im doing. Upto you

BM

[Tandum]

No, it means you usb to the camera and pulse guide to the mount. I use both phd and maxim to guide, sometimes maxim won't calibrate when looking though a OAG so I use PHD. You've probably worked it out by now anyway :)

You can also use the guide cable from the camera to the mount if you want but that's just one more cable you don't really need ...