I now have my new SX Superstar guide camera and was surprised what I could now see in PHD with only a 1 sec exposure, below is a copy of the report on first use I posted in an older thread but I wondered what others who use the Lodestar could see in PHD as I have the newer Superstar and can only compare it with the old Toucam so please read the first use report and let me know how much detail you see with your Lodestar and PHD.
Setup everything as the pre sunset sky was totally clear and the satellite image looked good for the night but that was not to be as mentioned above.
After a bit of setup and focus setting (camera was fitted to an Orion ST80) I was away and running just using PHD and the SX drivers no binning, 1sec exp time and some darks and off I went just having a look around and checking star magnitudes that I was able to see coming up using theSKY6 for reference.
The results of this brief look around impressed me but keep in mind I only have the old unmoded Toucam as reference to what is good or bad.
My impression is it's very good, a very clean image with such low background noise that I was actually able to see Galaxy's.
Now mind you they were faint but distinguishable, so from a guiding point of view it was an easy job to lock onto a mag 11 star without problems.
Can't access the camera settings in PHD like you could with the Toucam but this doesn't seem to be an issue as all I needed was to be able to select the exp time and possibly didn't even need to do darks.
So initial impressions are it was well worth the dollars and I'm looking forward to giving it a good work out.
Any comments on your experiences with you guide camera on a similar setup would be good.
Cheers.
