Guidemaster

[Octane (Humayun)]

All,

Does Guidemaster support the Meade DSI?

Regards,
Humayun

[rogerg (Roger)]

I highly doubt it.

Guidemaster is effectively the same as GuideDog, in fact there's very few differences I can see on the face of it (happen to have both installed). I use GuideDog, just un-installed Guidemaster after finding it still here.

They both work on the standard windows interface to webcams, which the DSI and other long exposure cameras don't. The only long exposure cameras you can use with them (or GuideDog at least) is long exposure modified webcams.

I encountered all this recently when debating ways to autoguide my Losmandywith Gemini. I've ended up using my webcam & GuideDog, the combination works really well, you're just limited to bright stars. Using a DSI would be nice, but that'd mean quite a bit more work for me (hardware and software).

Roger.

[beren]

Give this a go http://www.stark-labs.com/phdguiding.html , I tried it last night with a number of test runs in comparision to guidedog and got better results ....looks like it supports the DSI {i was using the meaade LPI}

[allan gould]

Funny, I was using guidedog but found that for my setup that the latest guidemaster was far superior and have been using it lately. Easy calibration and very good guiding. Couldnt get PHD to work well.

[Octane (Humayun)]

All,

Thanks for your responses.

Allan, I ended up using PHD Guiding. It's so simple.

1. Click camera;
2. Click telescope;
3. Click capture;
4. Click stop;
5. Select star;
6. Click PHD Guide;

That's all there is to it. Wonderful application.

Regards,
Humayun

[rogerg (Roger)]

That PHP program looks pretty darn good ... Temping to buy a meade DSI or Orion camera and see how it'd go. Thanks for the link guy's..

Roger.

[5ash (Philip)]

Originally Posted by beren

Give this a go http://www.stark-labs.com/phdguiding.html , I tried it last night with a number of test runs in comparision to guidedog and got better results ....looks like it supports the DSI {i was using the meaade LPI}

so i assume it supports the LPI , Beren??

[allan gould]

I tried version 1.2 - see its now version 1.1.4beta and doesnt need .net to run. I will give it another try

[Octane (Humayun)]

Allan,

The only problem I had was I was unable to select faint stars through the DSI-C, which the Meade Envisage software has no problem guiding on.

I click on a star and the software continually reports NO STAR. I was shooting the Al-Nitak region and had to end up manually adjusting my imaging scope to point to what I wanted to image, and centre the guide scope on Al-Nitak itself in order to guide on it. A bit annoying, as I prefer having both scopes aligned at the same point.

I've gone through all the settings and not sure what the issue could be. I might get in touch with the author of the software.

Regards,
Humayun