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I use an AO8 infront of the filterwheel and my ST10XME. The ST camera has a connector attached to the DB9 output port with a socket for th eguide cable. This allows me to directly connect the ST10 to the mount with a standard guide cable.
You calibrate the AO in 2 ways separately. One is the standard way that moves the mount via guiding corrections. The second is to calibrate it using the "tip/tilt" of the AO unit.
As stated above when you guide with the AO it will preferentially just move the tip/tilt until a predetermined set point is reached. This defaults to 50% movement of the tip/tilt using CCDSoft.
When 50% is reached then the guider will "bump" the mount with the mounts motors to bring the guide star back within the 50% of the AO and then it will continue to guide with the AO.
You don't have to use a high speed with the AO.
I will often just use it like a normal guider with exposures of 1 -2 sec.
The advantage is that it is faster and probably more accurate to move a few grams of a tip/tilt mirror to guide compared to moving 20kg of scopes and camera. It also doesn't suffer from any backlash in dec like almost all mounts.
When you do have a bright guide star then use short exposures like 0.1sec but if not then it is still very useable.
Cheers
Terry
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