I have a new STX Guider and it is working just fine. A question I have is what is the component that sits directly below the CCD chip? Also, can the internal and external tracking chips operate simultaneously? Thank you!
Great to hear it is up and running! Yes that is the shutter mechanism. I suppose it is probably technically possible to operate both guide cameras at once; however, I don't know of an off-the-shelf software package that does that. More to the point, why would you want to do that?
Thank you, Doug! I've been building an Alt-Azimuth mount with field de-rotation in a 15 foot Pro-Dome. Completely impractical but it keeps me out of the bars! Its a 25 inch primary mirror with a 12.5 inch secondary mirror and a 6 inch tertiary mirror. At this point I'm using a Takahashi FSQ-106edx III facing the tertiary mirror instead of a 25" primary and 12.5 inch secondary for the sake of simplicity. It tracks nicely with a closed loop system using SBIG's STX-16803 and AO-X. The camera sits on a flat surface facing the tertiary mirror along its axis of rotation. It has an Optec Pyxis 3" and Optec TCF 3". I've written all of the tracking software for the closed loop system thanks to SBIG's software development support libraries (thank you, SBIG!). The Pyxis and TCF sit behind the camera so vignetting is not an issue. The de-rotation algorithm is open looped and tends to drift. Plan to make it a closed loop system independent of the tracking loop. I'm hoping to modify the STX Guider so that the STX-16803 internal tracking CCD will serve as a closed loop field de-rotator and the STX Guider will be used for a closed loop Tip/Tilt and tracking system. Now, I'm going to shoot myself in the foot and admit that I swapped the circuit board out of a ST-I with the circuit board in the STX Guider (voiding all warranties!) and verified that it is possible to control the STX Guider from a USB 2.0 without having to go through the STX-16803 HDMI port. Next step is to modify the STX Guider to hold the ST-I circuit board firmly in place. Hardware is the tough part, writing the software is not an issue thanks to SBIG's libraries. As I said before, it's not practical and there's no market for SBIG to build a USB STX Guider, but I'm having a lot of fun playing with the technology. I considered using an Astrodon Monster MOAG but decided that SBIG's STX Guider is the more elegant solution.
