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Old 30-03-2011, 01:04 PM
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tlgerdes (Trevor)
Love the moonless nights!

tlgerdes is offline
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Sydney
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Autoguiders will have a CCD or some other image capturing device. An autoguider is a camera device that has a direct output for connecting to and autoguider port on a telescope mount. The most common of the ports conforms to SBIGs ST4 format.

You can use other methods for autoguiding a telescope though. These will often involve using a computer with software as a proxy interface between a camera and a telescope control port. Camera detect picture, computer processes picture and computer issues dorectional corrections via another hardware interface to the telescope mount.

A lot of modern astronimical CCD camera have an autoguider output on then as well. and can be used by a computer as the control interface to issue movement commands to a telescope mount via the output port.

A true "Autoguider" is a camera that is self contained and can select stars and issue guiding commands to a telescope in one unit. Most "autoguiders" though nowadays are a hybrid of software/hardware with a camera capturing images, a PC software control interface for selecting stars and the issuing guide commands is done via a PC through a dedicated port in the guide camera.
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