Meade LX200 guiding problem

[peter brown]

Hi'
I have bought a Star Shoot autoguider and am trying to get it to guide my LX200. I get an image on my laptop and do all the prerequisite steps....taking darks etc, but when I click onto a star I get a green box arount the star and never get the tracking crosshairs indicated in the instructions. The camera is set to take 1 second images. The images vary in their quality. Am I supposed to turn something on or off on the LX200??
Has anyone any suggestions......Please?
Thanks in advance
Peter B

[marki]

Are you trying to run the guider through the laptop port or the guide port? I assume you are using PHD software.

[merlin8r]

Hello Peter,
I'll just run through the setup of a Starshoot on an LX200 to make sure you've got it right.

You want the USB port from the camera running to your computer obviously, the other phone-like cable plugs into the "Autoguider" port on your scope.

When you have PHD up and running, you need to first click on the little camera icon, and set it to the Orion Starshoot Autoguider. Then click the telescope icon, and set this to "In camera"

Hit the looped arrow button to set up a string of short shots that allow you to focus and find a guide star. Once you've got that, click on your guide star. Make sure there's a green box around it. Then click "Stop", then "PHD".

Wait for the calibration procedure to finish (there are numbers down the bottom of the screen telling you what it's doing), then it's autoguiding.

This is how I do it, and it works for me anyway.