Direct guide instead of relays

[Charles Dunlop]

I'm setting up my paramount on direct guide from the internal guide chip on an ST-8. Anyone ever set this type of guiding up? how does it work?

[Charles Dunlop]

Direct guide was tough with internal guiding, it was kinda a nightmare in fact. Trying again tomorrow though with a MOAG into a lodestar, think I'll just plug in the guider though and not do direct.

[Ken Hose]

I use direct guide with my Paramount. I use an ST402 as a guide camera mounted on a QSI532wsg imaging camera. It should work the same as your ST-8. The CCDWare website has a calculator you can use to figure your guiding parameters : http://ccdware.com/resources/autoguidercalcv4.cfm. I use CCDSoft for guiding and MaxIm DL for image capture. In CCDSoft I use the following settings: Autoguide Settings/Drive Settings/Advanced, calibration distance = 80, min move = .6, max move = 1.5, aggressiveness = 7, Direct Guide, Delay after correction = 1. My scope has a 2800 mm focal length with a 0.64 arcsecond image scale. Calculate your settings using the calculator.

Ken

[Charles Dunlop]

Thanks Ken. I found it too difficult to guide from behind filters so I just reattached the guidetube and tightened everything down like there was no tomorrow to avoid flexure issues. Like the idea of no guidetube though, going off axis with a MOAG A when I upgrade to a new OTA in six months or so. Direct guide seems cool.