Celestron Nexguide help.

[Starcrazzy]

Hi. Apparently the last time I used my nexguide, I broke the lead that goes to the mount for auto guiding.
If someone else has a celestron nexguide can you do me a favor and have a look at the guide cable and tell me if its a cross over or straight through Rj12 please.
So holding the two ends of the leads together, side by side, do the colours of the little wires stay the same or crossover?
Thanx in advance..
Andrew

[Starblazer99]

http://www.celestron.com/c3/support3/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&nav=0&kbarticleid=2477

[midnight]

Yes they do.

With the RJ latch pointing up and looking at the end of the lead as per the photo, the colours are left to right :

White, Brown, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue

The same applies at the Nexguide end.

Hope this helps.

Darrin...

[Starcrazzy]

Thanks guys.
My next question. I cant seem to see any firmware updates or anything. I think I need to do something along those lines as my nexguide is just not guiding anymore.:(
It locks the stars no problem, does the auto cal, then the star just drifts off the cross and it doesn't hold it. The dec/ RA flashes every now and then, but it doesn't hold the star centered.Have any of you seen this problem?
Oh, it also seem to be stuffing with the Eq5. It freezes sometimes when the nexguide is plugged into the st4 port.:(

[midnight]

If the auto cal is working then it must be moving the mount.

On my G11, unless I place the speed into GUIDE, the G11 will not accept guiding commands. So I know things are working when during auto cal, I see the RA and DEC co-ordinates on my G11 hand controller move reasonably quickly as the NexGuide auto cal sends a long pulse to the mount. It should be doing the same to your mount.

So check the auto cal is indeed moving the mount. If so, then the guider hardware must be working.

One other thing you can try is change the pulse length by using the UP/DOWN and LEFT/RIGHT buttons during guide mode. These change the pulse length which the guider auto determines. I usually use around 300 for both DEC and RA. Increase to 1000 and you will see the DEC +- or RA +- command stay on longer during a correction. Give it a go and explore the guider. Handy device IMO as it means I don't need a PC out there.

Good luck. Mine is currently out there plugging away in the strong breeze.

BTW, I've never seen a firmware upgrade despite there being a programming port.

Darrin...