autoguiding with star adventurer 2i

[Gregory]

Hello all!!

I am trying to setup my star adventurer 2i to autoguide with PHD. I found some info that says i need to set the "mount" in PHD to "on-camera". When i do this i don't any indication that I can connect to it. The "connect" button is greyed out. I purchased a ST-4 cable that is suppose to be for this purpose. The mount is connected via USB.

Any ideas as to what i am missing?

Thanks,

Greg

[Bruce Waddington]

I think you need to set aside some time and read the PHD2 User Guide.  There is an entire section devoted to connecting PHD2 to various kinds of equipment.

https://openphdguiding.org/man/Basic_use.htm#Equipment_Connection

Bruce

[Gregory]

Hi Bruce,

I did but it wasn't very clear as to what I would see when using the ST-4 interface.  I connected my LPI-G camera with the USB cable and ST-4 cable, and while camera was able to connect to PHD2  the "On-camera" option,  which is the only way to use the star adventurer,  and which the instructions tell me use, doesn't allow me to connect , its greyed out. So I can't tell if the mount is in contact with PHD2 or not. I would like  to test this setup before going outside to use it.

Greg

[Bruce Waddington]

PHD2 isn't directly connected to the mount with this limited set-up so there's no sense in enabling the button for a "mount connection".  PHD2 won't know where the scope is pointing, won't slew it, etc.  All it will be able to do is route guide commands to the guide camera which will, in turn, send electrical commands to the mount via the ST-4 cable.  This is the description of ST-4 guiding in the User Guide:

"With this style of interface,  PHD2 guide commands like "Move west 500 mSec" are translated by the intermediate device (camera, Shoestring box, AO) into electrical signals necessary to drive the mount motor for the correct length of time. "

The "intermediate device" in this context is your guide camera.  So when you choose "On-Camera" for the mount connection, PHD2 only connects to the guide camera.  The next thing you will probably get stuck on is that you must disable Dec guiding for your set-up because all the mount can do is make RA corrections.  So in the PHD2 UI, choose a Dec guiding mode of "Off".  If you don't do this, you won't be able to complete a calibration.

Bruce

[Gregory]

Bruce,

Thanks for the info. I had all the cables hooked up correctly but couldn't figure out to attach the On-Camera Mount. Turns out the camera needs to be connected first then PHD2 will allow the On-Camera Mount to connect. Once I figured that that everything worked and I was able to test it using "Manual Guide" in PHD2.

Greg