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Old 30-12-2010, 12:00 PM
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wasyoungonce (Brendan)
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wasyoungonce is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Mexico city (Melb), Australia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by alistairsam View Post
...I had mistakenly assumed that a guide camera with an ST4 port can be used as a standalone guider that can send correction pulses. clearly not the case.

I was hoping to do away with the laptop and use the guide camera and my mcu alone. I guess I need to do a lot more research for that as I'll have to analyze the ccd image on my mcu to generate correction pulses required.

understood what you mentioned about pulseguiding. I guess it makes more sense for the software to correct the mount directly rather than through the guide camera and its st4 port.

Some of the newer guide cameras do not need a computer..I added some links above but here they are again..here and here, here and I guess many more in the future. really ST4 guiding is...old and not keeping up with today's standards.

Pulse guiding is an excellent adaptation..as the pulse can also contain "rate" information. Generally with PHD and my mount controller I set the control pulses (ST4 correction pulses) rate to lets say .5x..that is .5 sidereal rate. So any corrections in the ST4 port are at .5 sidereal.

But this is a pre-set...and to tell the truth not the best method. Really what you want is the pulse to also contain "rate of change" aka to change the rate of the correction as well.

I believe the SG4 does this.

In reality it would be better to pulse guide and input these to the mount maybe via serial/USB not ST4.

All that said..ST4 works...it's simple that's why it's lasted so long. It's time is well and truly up though.
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