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I used a Lodestar last night and it worked quite well. Its not as sensitive as an SBIG ST402ME but its very light and very convenient.
You won't be able to callibrate it without autodarks because the Lodestar often appears to have a white line on the left and sometimes a white line across the top.
What happens is these artifacts are brighter than the guide stars so the software picks them over the guide star so when callibrating it appears that the mount did not move when it should have.
So;
1. Set CCDsoft to autodark on the autoguider.
2. Lodestar set to 2x2 binning.
3. Take an image, I use about 4 seconds.
4. Check the subframe box under focus tab.
5. Drag a box around a suitable guide star, make sure the box is large enough for the callibration routine which moves the star about 1/10th of the size of the full 2x2 image. Also make sure there is not another bright star in the field or just outside the field that will move into the image in the callibration routine.
6. I use the auto button under autoguiding tab to select the guide star (this also shows it will pick the star and not some defect).
7. Click on callibrate (you don't need to worry about the number of seconds as it does it really fast, that is for other non-Software Bisque mounts).
The callibration routine done as above only takes about 15 seconds. It usually is successful.
Perhaps Maxim does not get these artifacts and it is something to do with CCDsoft.
SX recommends PHD also.
I found using the latest 64 bit drivers got rid of the white horizontal line in my images. So that was a surprise. I still have the bright left hand edge though.
See how that works.
Depending on the seeing etc, but last night it appeared I got lowest tracking errors using 1 second guide exposures just like my Tak NJP did.
That may change once I get a PEC and better polar alignment should I ever get T-point working.
Greg.
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