Finally got autoguiding cracked...

Managed to get autoguiding working.

Below is a shot of Orion through the 4" Max and Canon 300d piggybacked on my LX90. Exposure time 470 seconds; ISO400
Autoguiding: LX90, Meade DSI, Maxim dl, Shoestring gpusb adapter, APM909.

This is an uncropped unprocessed image of M42. Only work done to it is to scale it down for the web. I'll take my time processing this later.



To be honest, I'm quite pleased with this. Hopefully I'll get more like this in the future.

Clear skies,

Nice one Michael, Cant wait to see the processed version of that.
Well done !

Johnno

Great image!!

Well done michael, tell us a bit about your autoguiding rig please!!

Cant wait to see some more shots from you now!!

Oops you already did tell us about your autoguiding rig. Read the post fully next time Dave!!

Well done again!

Well done michael, tell us a bit about your autoguiding rig please!!

Well, the main scope is the 8" f/10 Meade LX90 SCT on a standard meade wedge.
For this, I got 150mm rings and counterweights from ADM www.astro.premcom.com/ADM/index.htm .
My autoguiding scope is an MTO 4" f/10 Mak www.telescope-service.com/maksutovs/MTO/MTO.html#MTO1000 .

The autoguiding camera is the Meade DSI. To communiate between the DSI and the LX90, I need to do the following:
Latest version (only just released in the last few days) of Maxim dl allows for the use of the Shoestring Gpusb adapter. This adapter sends out autoguiding commands via a USB port. However, the LX90 doesn't take ST4 autoguiding commands directly. To allow for this, Meade made the accessory port module (APM909). This is specifically aimed at the LX90 to connect into it's AUX port. The full autoguide path is:
DSI --> Maxim dl --> gpusb --> APM909 --> LX90.
For the image above, my polar alignment was not that great. I'm surprised at just how good the autoguiding worked.