[johnno07 (Chris)]

I'm stumped. I have spent most of today trying to figure out how to get my new QHY-5L II set up as a guider with no luck.

My set up:
- Skywatcher BD ED100 Refractor
- Celestron CG5 Mount
- Vixen 70mm guidescope
- QHY-5L II camera
- Very new Win 8.1 laptop (more than capable of running all applicable software)

I installed the latest drivers for the 5L II, ASCOM Platform 6 SP3, ASCOM drivers, PHD 1.14 and the included EZPlanetary software.

Setting everything up, I can get an image perfectly through EZPlanetary. PHD, on the other hand, is giving me a headache. As I believe that the 5L II is not natively supported through PHD yet, I choose ASCOM (Late) as my camera, and the the 5L II from the popup ASCOM menu. When I click the loop button, I get basically no image. I upcapping and capping the guidescope gives me a white and light grey image respectively - regardless of the gamma setting. Switching my camera choice to the WDM option, on the other hand, gives me an image.

I don't fully understand ASCOM's role in all of this. Is it some sort of intermediary software that manages the drivers for your equipment?

Also, the guider is plugged into the guider port on mount with an ST4 cable and into my laptop with a USB cable - this is the proper set up, yes? i.e. the laptop does not need to be directly plugged into the mount?

I sincerely appreciate any help you can give - I'm struggling haha