M57 - Autoguided!!

I managed to get autoguiding sort of working last nite. Attached M57 image is 10 x 4 minutes at ISO 800.

I used an ATIK 2HS camera, which I have a loan of, as an autoguider . Using 'guidedog' software and a parallel port relay box I bought a while back. It works like this. The software examines a star image and sends corrections to the parallel port of the laptop. The relay box just turns these into switched pulses to the autoguider port. It was great standing back and hearing the clicks coming from the mount as it autoguided. Now I still have some work to do. Notice the star images are not perfect. Not elongated, but elliptical. I think this is caused by the autoguiding corrections not happening fast enough. I think I need to up the magnification on the guide scope so that smaller movements are detected and corrected more quickly. Also by lowering the camera ISO and increasing the exposure times should mean that errors dont register on the camera so fast. This elongation is in RA (checked by aligning the image with skymap). I also need to tweak some more settings in guidedog to get better results. Not perfect but a very encouraging start. Not bad for a webcam and a bit of free software!!!!




Details:

10x4minute images stacked with registax V3
C9.25 XLT
CG5 GT mount autoguided with ATIK 2HS and 'guidedog' software
Canon 300D @ ISO 800
Final processing with Paint Shop Pro V7.

Dave,
there is serious potential in that image, as I feared autoguiding can be tricky and is not usually straight forward.
I look forward to seeing more Dave.

Excellent image Dave, once you get that autoguiding sorted you will be turning out fantastic images

Later,

Jed.

Nice work there Dave. But tell me, some of the stars show colouration. I presume that this is not natural, yet you got good colour from the nebula - what caused the colouring in the stars?

Seanie.

Excellent Dave, those colours are something else :shock:
Bill.

Dave,
there is serious potential in that image, as I feared autoguiding can be tricky and is not usually straight forward.
I look forward to seeing more Dave.

Well from a little more reading, it seems my setup is a little more overcomplicated than it need be. It turns out that guide dog will also work using the standard PC connection cables available for most major telescope brands, e.g celestron and meade (using free ascom drivers). This does away with the need for the relay box. However there is still a drawback. The relay box also provides a 'pass-through' for your parallel port enabling you to use a modified webcam (which needs a parallel port too). However if you are satisfied with using a non-modified webcam then all you need is your PC to telescope cable, the webcam and guidedog. The downside of using a non-modified webcam means you cant guide on fainter stars this may preclude using an off axis guider. In short this may mean that many of you have all these bits already, therefore you already have an autoguider setup that you may not have known about!! Interesting eh?