K3CCD autoguiding

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Anyone have any experience with K3CCD autoguiding? I gave it a try last night but it kept driving the scope in one direction until the guide star dissapeared of the screen. What am I doing wrong?

[Alchemy (Clive)]

the angle you have set the camera in the guidescope ( which needs to be at right angles to the normal )

if your interface has a plot direction to move the point manualy ie n s e w buttons make sure when you push N it goes N if not rotate camera depending on which side of the meridian you are on it may have a button to switch n to s and e to W

your rate of guiding may be too quick check settings, remember 15 arc secs is sidereal rate. so 30 is 2x check settings on your mount and match to program

you could try phd as it is mostly automatic calibrating etc

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

As Alchemy has said check your camera angle. I normally align the camera so that pressing the DEC up button the star moves up and visa versa. I don't normally worry about the RA as long as I have the DEC right.

Definately keep your guiding to 2x siderial or less (too high a guide rate will definately do it)

Check to make sure you have your guiding directions around the right way. Is it the pink (dec) or blue (RA) that head off? At the top right hand side of the drift explorer are two buttons, one for reversing the direction of the RA (Blue) corrections and one for reversing the direction of the DEC (Pink) corrections. If your guide speed is right and the line still heads off then click the appropriate colour button, or both if both head off.

I use K3 all the time and I'll admit it can have a steep learning curve, but boy once you've learnt that curve it is a great all round program.

Oh and have you set your guidescope focal length and aperture and your guide camera pixel size and chip size under the Telescope and Camera icon?

[gbeal]

Paul has covered most of it. I too use K3, and it is a great program. I wanted to use PHD, cos its free, but for some reason I haven't managed to make it work, not yet. K3 does all I need, and more, plus Peter K's after sales service is awesome.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks for the help guys. I did the camera angle procedure as per the instructions but didn't try changing the camera position - I thought the angle thing corrected for wrong camera orientation in the software. Is this intended to help you align the camera properly?

I did set up the guide scope fl etc and I had the motor speed set on the minimum rate on the HC which I think is 2x.

The interface I have has arrows to drive the mount but they are not labelled - which button is N and which orientation on the screen is N?

Peter

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Peter are you using V2 or V3?

Buy setting the camera angle you should have np, but I tend to try to get it close to square anyway. The up and down buttons are your Declination buttons (n/s) and the left and right are you RA buttons (e/w). I use my handpaddle to operate the mount movement when setting up, not the controls built into K3. I just find it easier that way.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Paul,

It's V3. The camera angle was something like -93 so I guess I needed to rotate it about 90 deg.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

sounds about right.