Guiding with a Toucam

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Hi All,

I have a question;

I have successfully managed to connect the 1000D and the Toucam at the same time to Maxim DL and therefore want to start using the Toucam as the guider for the HEQ5.

Question is: I have noticed that using the LE mod on the Toucam (which I have on mine) seems to be the norm for exposures with the guide cam so the stars can be exposed properly and therefore the guider component can decide where to push the mount. However, I DO have the LE modded Toucam, BUT I dont have a parallel port (or a working USB converter) that allows me to use the LE mod on my laptop.

Can I get away with cranking up the gain or combination of shutter speed on the video to allow me to "see" a guide star without the LE running or am I just barking up the wrong tree here? I don't want to waste a lot of time not getting anywhere the next time I go out to try this so I would like to know if I am wasting my time using video instead of stills on the Toucam.

Your advice and recommendations are most welcome.

Thanks

Chris

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

You could try using PHD. It will stack the short exposures to emulate a longer exposure;
Quote from PHD help file
"For example, if you use a short-exposure webcam your maximum true exposure duration may be 1/30th of a second or so. If you select "1 s" from the exposure duration, PHD Guiding will automatically acquire images for one second and stack them on the fly, using the resulting stack as the guide frame. "
Geoff

[gbeal]

Chris,
does the ToUcam work as normal, that is like it would pre-mod?
Reason I ask is that many moons ago I started with a basic ToUcam, in an 80mm refractor, and adjustable rings, and found it guided just fine, no mod. I used IRIS (I wish I knew how to process with IRIS, but that's another story.
I also use an interface called "StarMate" mate.
I'm sure it will work, Maxim might make difficult work of it though, try PHD like Geoff suggested.
Gary

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

like gary i too have guided with an unmodded toucam in the past
The only issue is finding a guidestar at short exposures

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

ToUcams rock. Its the one camera I know works everytime everywhere in my setup. Guides like a charm. Remember though you still need good star. Good S/N help

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Thanks Guys,

Yes Gary, it works fine as I use it to capture planets like Jupiter and Saturn and I can turn up the gain on it and pick up faint moons orbiting both of these as I have seen these when focusing with the dob.

It seems I should be OK from all your responses, however, another thread I read put me onto the fact that I may have to shorten the FL of the guide scope (F7.7) by using my 0.5 focal reducer to be able to provide a wider field to pickup more stars?

I think the main thing was whether I needed to engage the long exposure mod to enable longer exposures to be able to expose the fainter stars, but I might just have to try it out and fiddle with the settings to see how I go. Like I said, I think the focal reducer may come in handy also.

Sound like a plan?

Cheers

Chris

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Go for it Chris. You will likely also find with a shorter guidescope, the corrections will be smoother on the guiding as it puts less demand on the accuracy of your mounts guiding movements. Plus you will get better s/n

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Thanks Paul

I will give it a burl and see how I go, all I need now is some time and hopefully some clear skies on the weekend......expect a guided picture sometime next year!

Thanks for the advice

Cheers

Chris

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

[gbeal]

Well given all that, see if you can find a surplus 50mm finder to fit it into, in place of the eyepiece of course.
Gary