Astrophotography Skills – Autoguiding

Page not written yet.

Outline of what it will contain:

• Intro
  • Point to article on options
  • Assume already installed and practiced
• Find a suitable guide star
  • Objectives
    • Good guide star in guider frame
    • No other similar stars in guider frame
    • Good main image composition
  • May need to adjust and iterate
    • Rotate camera
    • Rotate guider
    • Re-point separate guide scope
• Calibrate autoguider
  • What’s involved
  • When do you need to re-do it?
• Set guiding parameters
  • Objectives
    • Correct errors quickly
    • Don’t over-correct (causing oscillation)
    • Don’t “chase seeing”
  • Which parameters
    • Length of guide camera exposure
    • Delay between guide camera exposures
    • Minimum and maximum moves
    • Agressiveness
  • Calculator
  • Special mention: dithering
    • What is it
    • Why do it
    • Effect is between main camera exposures
    • Requires guiding integrated with exposure management
      • integrated s/w like TheSky or Maxim
      • guiding that the exposure manager is unaware of, like PhD used with manual exposure on a DSLR, can’t be used for dithering
    • Settling parameters
• Start guiding
  • Wait for it to settle
  • Ready to go
• keep an eye on it while running
  • Normal drift
  • Sudden jumps
  • “lost guide star”
  • inter-exposure dithering