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LACERTA MGEN

1. mA Shutter out pull down current 05 mA 1 with connection to PC via USB 2 older devices may draw about 8mA more current due to the MCU see the table above for the other notes Note values shown are only informational and derived from the design 1 3 2 Imaging specification of the Camera ADU means Analog to Digital conversion Unit a digital step e means electron RMS means standard deviation statistical Root Mean Square Min unit CCD active pixel area pixel mm m Imagingdepth 8 i pixel sec_ max Conversion min gain 2 44 e ADU max gain 9 175 e ADU Readout noise at min gain 2 22 e RMS Readout noise at max gain 9 59 71 e RMS Average dark current 32 e px sec Pixelcapadty 10k eee ee EE Operating temperature a ieee 1 the value is only informative but measured on some instances 2 at 23 C CCD temperature 3 violating the limits is the responsibility of the User The CCD and its environment heats itself a little bit if active good for anti dew The power dissapated in the HC is also rather useful than problematic 4 typical value mean measured on 22 pieces of random Camera instances The mean of deviation of this value between the instances is only 0 29 e The were measured in some extreme instances C The gain of the CCD s analog output signal is called gain generally a
2. Random software reset bug fixed when Camera got inaccessible at LiveView LiveView shows white when the frame is saturated Not probably case at night 2 1 Previous version changes From 02 04 O Hot pixel map handling of Camera These pixels are cosmetized while autoguiding or searching stars Available only for 1x1 and 2x2 binning modes Support for Astro Photography Tool Incanus Ltd Dithering by M Gen and exposures by APT could be synchronized Fixed bugs gt USB interface is reset when the cable is plugged out to recover from a wrong communication without a power off reset gt 4 exposure slot data were not stored into EEPROM memory Internal fixes affecting UI and control performance From 02 03 O AutoExposure is expanded to 4 program slots and different program modes Read more on this at 5 1 2 O Increased frequency against low light blinking of LEDs O Fixed bugs gt Calendar changed to the 1 of January of next year after 30 of November 23 59 59 From 02 02 O Direct switching between Guiding and AutoExposure screens using ESC held down for more than half second O Internal fixes O PC application changed has a graphical user interface Windows op systems From 02 01 o An idle LED light can be set to help finding the buttons in the dark O When starting the autoguiding parameters is stored to file like camera gain expo time threshold and the RA s and D
3. These are the following from left to right O Canon EOS compatible shutter output 3 5mm stereo jack conn O Camera port RJ 45 type female conn can be used any max 2m UTP cable too but the supplied cable is preferred Note NEVER try to use a UTP cross cable O DC power input 5 5 2 1mm size 12V nominal 9 15V tip positive polarity protected O ST 4 compatible autoguider output RJ 12 type female conn O PC communication port USB B mini 5 pin conn e Camera head This is a special device can be used only with the LMG Handcontroller It s function is imaging and doing several image processing steps To attach the Camare to the guider telecsope there is a 4 Smm thick T2 inside screw Any 12 5 1 25 adapter can be used for 1 25 31 7mm focusers There is a 1 25 filter thread inside the T2 panel to attach some filter or dust preventor At the back of the Camera there is the same type of connector as on the HC RJ 45 female The sensor is a high sensitivity monochrome CCD from Sony with ExView HAD technology Due to its exremely low dark current dark noise and the enhanced sensitivity in near infrared it doesn t need cooling and saves energy These with the low readout noise gives the ability of guiding on very faint stars or using small guidescope The small pixel size allows using shorter focal length for guiding compared to other systems For more information see the datasheet of the CCD its part numb
4. When there is no open file and there is space for a new one the first line will be create new which will create and open a brand new file by activating it pressing SET if selected This case is shown at the screenshot After a new file has been created the device exits the filesystem screen If there is no more space free entry for a new file this option will be missing The last opened flag L can be used to identify which file has been used previously If the device was turned off and then on open this file to continue data storage into a single file It as advised to use one file for each night if possible If a file entry s row is selected the following options appear for the buttons SET button display the file s details new screen LEFT button delete the file with confirmation This uestion is shown With pressing SET You can confirm the deletion while ESC cancels it If there is an open file then this screen at right can be seen there is no create new option The OP open flag shows which file is currently open The open file can t be deleted at this moment but the others can File details screen To see the details about a file press SET on it in the files list screen An example of the details screen is shown at right The displayed data is the following State the actual state of the file that can be last opened this file was opened last time
5. exp time time 0 1 99 59 9 sec global The desired exposure time Program n or P n button global Shows the currently shown program slot number Program n if AE is inactive Shows the active program slot number P n if AE is active Regardless its meaning this item leads by pressing SET to the AE program list screen 5 1 2 Using LEFT RIGHT buttons on this item the shown program slot number can be changed Start or Stop button 25 Used to start or stop the program At stopping the program is interrupted regardless to its Current state and the shutter lines go inactive immediately It is possible to stop the program while it and the DSLR is in ML state In this case they will be out of synchron but the DSLR may timeout from ML state and the synchron is okay from that time NOTE You can start only the currently shown program regardless to multi type program mode settings e Pause or Continue button The program can be paused in the wait state between the exposures This item is only shown when the program is running If Pause is activated a P character at the left bottom part indicates that the program will be paused after the current exposure ended The item text will be Continue The paused state gets active at the last 0 1 second of the wait state of the program At the paused state the program variables can be changed Meanwhile a running program it is not allowed The remainin
6. 11 O O The drifts display mode uses 4 LCD pixels as the tolerance interval If the drift exceeds the display area 12 pixels for each axis it means that drift reached the emergency interval which is 3 times the tolerance interval Guiding window is locked at guiding otherwhise it follows the star Text detailed error display Except some rare cases From 01 22 O The AutoExposure s state and outputs are also stored into the open file The guiding curve drifts is saved only when the AE is in the exposure state It belongs that the PC application version 1 22 generates a HTML format output when downloading a file which contains for all the exposures separately the guiding curve as well as the spread of the guiding star positions and the approximated tracking error of the mount derived from the autoguider signals All the raw data is written into a CSV file for any user processing o The calibration has been moved to a new screen on which the directions speeds and the orthogonality is displayed O When starting the autoguiding the latest position is not rounded to pixel center but used the raw position directly for the new guiding center From 01 21 O The menu structure has been changed a little bit Some rarely used screen and parameter is pushed down the tree while for example the guiding screen is now accessible with only two SET keypresses from the main menu O Complete file
7. strength avoids oscillation and compensates other anomaly a wrong calibration if set carefully At manual guiding parametrization no calibration data is present this allows the User to set RA correction signal lengths according to the objects DEC coordinate That s why the value is allowed to be over 100 Note with calibration using long exposure time over 1 second the typical value is 70 100 using shorter correction frequency requires to lower this value to overcome oscillation around the zero drift point Be careful not to chase the seeing use as much integration time as many Your mount s tracking error allows mode decimal 0 2 profile Some different guiding policy is available this can be given by this item These are 48 0 Inside the tolerance interval there will be no correction signal but outside of it the device will try to correct the drifto to zero 1 Inside the tolerance interval there will be no correction signal but outside of it the device will try to correct the drift back to the tolerance border only 2 The same as mode 0 but this singals even inside the tolernace border as a function of the current drift to remove low frequency component of the guiding curve the drift s history This mode is more liable to cause oscillation it may be compensated by lowering the aggressivity or increasing the tolerance a little bit There is an emergency action for both axes If the drift is beyond
8. 3 times the tolerance limit and is at least 1 0 pixel the averaging is turned off and correction signal is generated immediately This is for the case that the star is suddenly moved out of its position and is needed to get it back to zero drift as fast as possible Other causes can be wind backlash and mechanical errors in the mount Currently this emergency behaviour is always active 5 1 10 4 Extra page 5 5 This page is reserved for miscellaneous settings and functions The screen items ImgProc special Selects the image processing method OLD and NEW are the options OLD is fully identical with the one used in the previous Firmwares below 2 10 NEW is a more complex method of measuring the star It does not require a threshold value and behaves always as partial see at the next item Full wnd Partial switch This sets the image processing details of the OLD mode Full wnd full window processes the guiding window image on the whole so only one star should be seen through the window This was the default in the oldest Firmwares The other method is called Partial which means that one star point and it s environment is processed only other pixels are discarded The next frame s search point is the previous frame s or latest known star position The search is done with a growing radius set of octagons which ends when no more star pixels are found in the last octagon s pixe
9. activated by pressing the SET button Activating means entering to editing mode to change its value or doing some function By default You can change the selected item move the cursor with UP and DOWN buttons and in some cases LEFT and RIGHT could also be used This screenshot below shows the main menu with the Exposure item selected on it 15 Certain items behave differently There are number time and text types etc Text type items can lead to a submenu or are to do some function like a button while other number or time types store a value that could be edited changed and are called parameters or variables These are to setup parametrize the device to control its behaviour 3 2 1 Menus The HC has a fixed menu tree structure From the main menu every submenu is accessible with a subscreen at the end that is for some specific function If an item leads to an other sub screen it is called menu item Exiting from a screen is done with ESC button When entering into a subscreen the selected item is memorized to set it as the selected item if You go back with ESC 3 2 2 Variables parameters There are many types of items on the screens If an item holds a value its called variable or parameter Their value can be changed in editing mode For demonstration there are some example Example A variable item is selected on the screen By pressing SET You can enter editing mode if it is allowed to be changed
10. before plugging out power cable s because it closes the open file if any saves the parameter settings stops the Camera properly etc There is a half a second dead time before the device gets any button press to avoid unwanted power off With ESC You go back to main meu 36 5 1 6 Guiding menu screen This screen and its subscreens holds all the functions and settings for autoguiding e Current guiding subscreen This leads to the main Guiding screen 5 1 10 1 e Live View subscreen To enter LiveView screen where the full CCD surface can be monitored in realtime e Star search subscreen Leads to the automatic star searching function s screen Compared to the LiveView this is more immune to single hot pixels and finds faint stars e Guider setup submenu Holds the parameters of the guiding optics and the mount s autoguiding settings 37 5 1 7 Guider setup screen This screen holds the parameters of the guiding optics and mount so guider in this context does not mean the autoguider device These values are needed by some function that does not know anything about the used system and giving the values approximately helps them Calibration is such a function e Obj focus decimal 50 60000 mm profile The focal length of the guider optics used with the Camera in millimeters e AG speed RA DEC real 0 00 1 00 profile The correction autoguiding speed relative to sidereal ra
11. calibration procedure Don t bother with it it has no effect on the guiding This star following behaviour is only active if the star could move off the current window ie calibration In other cases it remains in the same position ie guiding active 5 1 10 1 Main imaging page 1 5 This page contains the parameters of imaging and the autoguiding can be started and stopped from here The screen items are the following e gain decimal 1 9 profile The same variable as the image gain at the Star Search screen They are identical More on this value at 1 3 2 Changing the value takes effect imediately at the next frame e exp decimal 50 4000 ms profile The same variable as the expo time at Star Search screen They are identical The used exposure integration time for taking images for autoguiding e thresh decimal 1 99 96 The threshold value to discriminate star and non star pixels for display In the OLD image processing mode only the pixels above this are used for autoguiding 44 Generally a value of 10 is useful and is above the noise at any gain if the star fills the dynamic range check with profile display mode AG start or AG stop button To start or stop the autoguiding When starting the latest star position will be the guiding center where the star is to be held Later the guiding center can be overwritten with a new value for example by the RD function The po
12. currently there is no open OPEN this is the currently opened file Closed the file is closed and so can be continued reopened broken the file s data is broken can not be continued reopened O O O O Creat the date and time of its creation 35 Modif the date and time of its last opening modification If this row is empty the file was open created only once yet Size the size of its data content in kilobytes and in percentage of the whole memory rounded Downld the downloaded state of the file After downloading the file with the PC application it gets the value yes otherwise it is no Opening a downloaded file will reset this state to no value to show it contains new data appended to it The operation that can be done on the file is shown after Options e If there is no open file selecting the Open item and pressing SET button You can open this file except if it is broken e If this file is open Close is shown and is used to close the file Data storage will be interrupted Or You can go back to the files list screen with perssing ESC or activating the default Back to list item The device goeas back to the files list screen automatically also after an Open or Close operation 5 1 5 Power off screen This asks for power the device off SET or not ESC Power off makes everything go inactive This is the advised mode to stop the device
13. lower the chance for oscillation will be obsolete using the smart guiding method implemented soon From 01 11 13 O O O New drifts as a guiding display mode the history of the drifts of the guiding star can be monitored for the previous 48 frames Increased LCD backlight PWM frequency it has no effect on the Camera now in Live View had a tiny Bugfix Camera stop in cold symptom has been corrected in hardware too From 01 10 O O O O 0 0 O LiveView function 1 10 size real time image for the entire CCD field The threshold parameter is now set in pecentage Some parameters can be changed with LEFT or RIGHT buttons too Advanced method for StarSearch overexposed stars are missed more rarely The brightness of indicator LEDs can be set individually Asking for stopping the guiding if it s in progress and some function needs to have it stopped Autorepeat for all the buttons makes the navigation or parameter change easier A 0 5s dead time for the buttons is inserted at the power off screen to avoid accidental power off of the device From 01 09 and before O O O O Adoptation from the prototype circuit and software hardware changes Indicator LEDs are now active Bugfix AutoExposure did short wake up signals periodically in wait state and much more tiny changes 14 3 About the user interface 3 1 Buttons and LEDs On the front panel of the HC there a
14. one is displayed with a tiny rectangle see on screenshot The index orders the found stars nearly by their brightness The first index must be the brightest star found The brightness value approximated is shown below the big window The unit is A D conversion unit and gives the sum of them for all the star s pixels To start following the selected star press SET button See Then You can monitor the star on the Guiding screen 5 1 10 where this action jumps Note the smaller rectangle is for live viewing of the selected star s CCD part currently not used always empty If the search was inefficient this is shown You can start a new search with the same parameters by pressing the SET button New search or go back to the Star Search screen by pressing ESC and change the parameters 39 Other notes The automatic star search method uses a 32 pixel width window Stars having this huge image or defocused spots may not result in a hit point or more points close to eachother Double stars within this size are also identified as single stars 40 5 1 9 Live View screen The screen does that it s name suggests The entire CCD surface is monitored on the LCD in realtime so far as a two state display can there are on bright and off dark pixels on it The on pixels show that the given part of the CCD is brighter than a threshold value Each displayed pixel corresponds to a 10x10 pixel field on th
15. output lines 3 5mm stereo jack One program can be set up at a time on this screen started paused continued and stopped The screen items are the following Shots to do decimal 1 999 global The number of images to take in series wait time time 0 5 99 59 9 sec global Minimal wait time between the exposures The mirror lockup is a part of the exposure This wait time could be more in real than the set value due to other functions like enabled Random Displacement The very first wait time before the first shutter exposure signal is always 1 second Note right before the end of the wait time the shutter focus line is active for the last 0 3 seconds to wake up the DSLR if it was in standby mirror lockup time 0 20 0 sec global Mirror lockup means if the DSLR has a mirror lockup option and is active it will only move the mirrors out of the optical path for the first shutter signal and the next signal will start the real exposure The lockup of the mirrors can cause the telescope mount to oscillate for a short time If ML is activated in the DLSR this must be also set up in the device to be in synchron This item is to do this The mirror lockup time is always 0 2 second then the device is waiting in the remaining time If this item is set to 0 0 it means the ML is disabled Note independent of the value set the ML time inluding wait phase is at least 0 5 second except if disabled 0 0
16. system menu screens open close delete and create new a short file list and file details screen The date and time settings screen is also accessible now from menu O In Autoexposure selecting Start Stop Pause will change the selection to the more understandable item O LCD contrast can be set and is stored o AstroTimer mode the Autoexposure s and Random Displacement s opertion mode using an external shutter controller device This mode is fully compatible with AstroTimer The Autoexposure will have only one time value period to set while the external shutter is active and the shutter output will be only active when a Random Displacement is being made the AE program is in wait state O New RD mode besides the default uniform square there is a new square snake pattern 12 O Exclusive autoguiding output signalling mode Non simultaneous signalling Only one axis can have autoguiding signal active at a time that s why it is called exclusive mode Between different axis signal there is a 62ms dead time This may be used with old touchy mount that don t tolerate the default parallel signalling O Bugfix quitting from LiveView screen did not stop the imaging into the screen O Bugfix in some special cases the guiding image was drawn into false position even if it was inactive From 01 20 O Stepping back in menu tree will hold the priously selected item It s easier to
17. the background and weights Star pixels e Designed to tolerate unconventional star shapes mainly for the forthcoming multi star guiding mode This gives less star position noise and this does not depend on a bad threshold setting Practical for very hard separable doublets too e Involved partial mode Practical for processing one of a well separated doublet e FWHM value approximation is available from the processing Simplified Full Width at Half Maximum is a value giving the diameter of a star image Practical to set an optimal focus Drawbacks e Slower computation time For a normal small star it takes only some hundredths of a second and does not affect guiding accuracy If only background noise is present eg got cloudy it takes tenths of a second to find no star So this is only a tiny drawback e When the star gets way too dim the method could find portions of the background noise as a star and could give false position sometimes instead of no star found Under some circumstances even a warm pixel surrounded with accidental noise could be sensed as a narrow dim star To able to get a non distorted subpixel position any method requires a star FWHM much larger than 1 pixel If this requirement is not met the image is undersampled An ideal fast optics over f 7 can easily produce this effect For guiding we need an optimal star FWHM to get a well sampled image The optics must be s
18. the device the LCD backlight is always on full in update mode contrast decimal 0 9 global Contrast for the LCD By default it is 5 and is optimal in most of the cases Indicators setup submenu Here You can set the LED s brightness for each color function On this screen every LED will be lit to check their brightness in place 32 5 1 4 2 Mode settings screen Here are some switches for the behaviour of the functional units These are Currently the indicated events or states are constant can t be changed ESC blue shutter focus line active SET green shutter exposure line active directions red the RA autoguiding signals horizontaly left right the DEC signals vertically up down Each brightness can be next to the bright item in percentage of the full light Idle bright mean the value to be used for all the indicators when they are not active AstroTimer mode switch profile Used to cooperate with AstroTimer shutter controller unit If enabled the Autoexposure and so the EOS shutter output signals behave differently The decription of this mode see 4 2 Exclusive AG out switch profile Meaning of the item exclusive AutoGuiding output signals for the axes If enabled only one axis is signalled for correction at a time If the device wants to signal both axes the RA will be signalled first and the DEC after then in other words the RA axis is in priority to the DEC Not
19. EC s current autoguide settings page 3 4 of the guiding screen O Absolute star position CCD coordinates can be saved to file with manual start stop when autoguiding is not in progress The data could be used to check Periodic Error of the mount etc O Anew star image processing function is available called partial search This helps to separate double stars appearing in the guiding window and only one of those will be used and followed for guiding The problem occurs mostly when using short focal length guiding scope o The latest star position is displayed with some pixels at the guiding window s edges Helps to find out where the guider thinks the star s center is The partial image processing mode mostly requires this From 02 00 A short list about the main features compared to the pre release 01 99 o It can handle the device with new hardware The new hardware is indicated by the BOOT version number which is 14 instead of 13 10 Star search function is bugfixed and works for all the binning modes after changing the binning and the last results do also New LiveView mode pixel averaging with maximum removal also called as hot pixel rejection mode average havg Useful to virtually remove disturbing hot pixels but to hold faint stars on the screen Fixed bugs Star search data the selected star s brightness is displayed right in summed ADU units approximately precision de
20. ET for 1 second and the Firmware will try to start This works until the device communicates through USB after this only an USB command can start the firmware using PC application From Firmware ver 1 21 or later the device starts on the date and time settings screen and the filesystem s screen after that This is needed to make You remember to set or check the correct date and time at every startup and select a file to open if You want to store data about the night guiding events etc If You don t need these functions two more ESC keypresses after startup leads directly to the main menu Turning OFF the device In application mode Navigate back to the main menu with pressing ESC some times and select the power off item It is essential to power off this way because it stops every functional part properly Camera closes the open file and stores the parameter settings WARNING simply plugging out the power cable is not recommended mainly if the Camera is actively working Data loss or corruption in the open file or in the stored parameters may occur If the device is in update mode and there is no operation in progress mainly Firmware update You can power off the device with detaching the power cable s Be sure there is no operation in progress shown by the PC application WARNING never plug out the power USB cable during Firmware update Doing so can damage the boot program and it may be required to reconfigure the dev
21. LACERTA M GEN Stand Alone AutoGuider User s manual for Firmware 02 10 Created by Zoltan Tobler Last updated 16 May 2014 Table of contents LSUPERECDE US oos LM E MMC LL DI dM LM CR NULLE MAN 7 ENLEVER 8 ZIEMWEBEARURESIN EN US ai dadicsn ona Saut ERE NU QU M PAM AM C UM E M DUM AR ENERO M M NR MH IA 9 2d PREVIGUS VERSION ices assesses ERRAT AR ii sei i itis ER ei rai 9 V 87 9 4 oe e 41 CEIEBACND G SE uci RT m 43 MORE DET TILED OBOLU Peter 52 AES SP ERI UU RCMETRIPTPTEEEeE eRREETERER 52 GM ce ME NEN MACE I gir ERU 53 IPLANNED UEVELUFMNI LDSo rd exin enn tic aa 54 1 About the Hardware 1 1 Parts of the device The LACERTA M GEN Stand Alone AutoGuider referenced as LMG consists of the following parts Handcontroller referenced as HC It has the whole user interface buttons indicator LEDs LCD and does the main functions like Autoguiding Random Displacement AutoExposure etc The display is a graphic 128x64 dot negative LCD with backlight Previous versions have red while the new ones come with amber orange color due to the much better contrast Note that there is a protector film on the display window You must remove it before the first use This is quite invisible in dark when the LCD backlight is on some can let it on to protect the window from scratching and remove only if too much scratch is visible yet Stand Alone AutoGuider Image Control
22. The SET bracket around the edited item indicates Beginning of editing the editing mode In this mode there is always a cursor that selects one digit and is shown inverse To move the cursor on the digits LEFT and LEFT RIGHT buttons can be used Moving the cursor use UP and DOWN buttons Use EE EE autorepeat of the buttons for faster UP changing of the digit value more times Increasing a digit To store the new value press SET again The new value immediately takes place in most of the cases Doing so we also SET leave the editing mode Storing the new value To change the value of the selected digit 16 To discard the new value edited to hold the old one press ESC This exits editing mode DESC Discarding the new value The editing process is always done on a temporary variable so it does not affect anything if You start an editing and then exit from it with ESC During editing the device uses the old original variable value Types of the items or parameters The selected AG speed RA item in this screen is real type with a value of 0 5 The selected exp time item on this screen is time type with a value of 3 minutes and 15 2 seconds Decimal An integer value representing something meant in some unit or indexes different modes Consists of fix number of digits all these digit characters are shown inverse when selected as above in the example has limits minimal and maxi
23. alculated as follows 46 RA and DEC vectors are normalized to unit length Ther error is the scalar multiply of these vectors e RA DEC cos a The precision of the measurement the orthogonality O is The o value is displayed on the screen as Ortho in percent If this is 100 the orthogonality of the two direction vectors is perfect The value can be selected but does not have any function yet The error in optimal circumtances no wind good mount is generally under some percent The orthogonality is well enough above 90 this means that the angle betweent the axes is less than 6 degrees This has almost no effect on the guiding performance even higher errors may be useful for an accurate guiding In wind using weak or overloaded mount the value could be 60 80 only It is not advised to accept them a new calibration should be started except when so bad circumstances make it almost impossible The Delete cal button can be used to delete the current calibration data It is required before a new calibration proceure can be started 47 5 1 10 3 Guiding parameters page RA and DEC 3 5 and 4 5 The next two pages have the same items one page is for the RA and one for the DEC axis parameters These settings are independent for the axes These parameters define the guiding behaviour of an axis The parameters can be experienced with time and should be only trimmed later for some fix guidin
24. am set so AE will finish 28 e Taking two type of exposures alternating Start the program set as shown on the right First one expo is taken from slot 1 then slot 2 is activated Second one expo is taken from slot 2 then slot 1 is activated again since 3 and 4 are unused This is repeated until no more expos are left in slot 1 after the 10 cycle Then all the remaining expos are taken from slot 2 since it is the only one that is used and has expos left The list of taken expos looks like using slot number Dx pxpel1 TeTm zm a0 L1 2 1 2 a 2 2 2 aa If You start this program set from slot 2 shown at right the odd and even expos are swapped until the 20 since slot 2 is activated at the very beginning e Taking mixed exposures Start the program set as shown on the right First slot 1 is used for a single exposure then slot 2 is used for all its exposures then slot 3 is used for a single one too Since slot 2 is done now only slot 1 and slot 3 are used alternating until slot 1 is also done Then slot 3 for the rest and finished The list of taken expos looks like ee a0 Iz ae a pa ar a 1 2 2 2 2 3 1 3 1 3 3 3 Pause can be used during a multi type program set as well The program will be suspended in the last second of the wait time You are able to edit the program slots this time If You are editing an other program slot than the active one it i
25. ameters are the imaging parameters like analog gain and the guiding exposure time This two main parameters are responsible for the limiting magnitude and the precision of determining the star position These values are typically constant for a well tested system e image gain decimal 2 9 profile The analog gain value of the CCD s signal See the table at 1 3 2 e expo time decimal 50 4000 ms profile The exposure time for the star search and later for the guiding in milliseconds The maximum is 4 seconds there is no reason to increase this limit e New search button Starts a new star search with the given parameters If the Camera is not working it is started taking some seconds then the exposure time plus about 2 5 seconds for the search procedure elapses Searching stars text is displayed meanwhile e Last results button Shows the last search s results again goes to the search result screen which appears after each new search Hold valid information until some other Camera function was not used The search result screen appears after a star serach which can be seen at right The top left big rectangle shows the entire CCD area Every active point pixel on it represents a found star these are the hits At top right is the index of the currently selected hit and the number of them The first 16 are memorized and shown only To select the next or previous hit press UP or DOWN buttons The selected
26. an have only the max avg and havg values The value of most of the parameters or variables are stored into EEPROM non volatile memory of the HC at power off At the next power on they are initialized from here 3 2 3 Profiles Profile means the value of a set of variables parameters these are called profile variables The value of these can be set in each profile independently Changing the active profile will change the value of all these profile variables There are 3 separate profiles number 0 1 and 2 The active profile can be changed in the misc menu screen If doing so the old profile setting is stored into memory and the new one is loaded into the profile variables The change of these takes effect immediately and so there may be a question to stop the current autoguiding because all the guiding parameters are profile variables A profile can be interpreted as a trimmed set of parameters for each guiding solutions for example profile 0 for a guiding telescope profile 1 for off axis system and so on Non profile global variables are not affected by a profile change The parameters of the AutoExposure program are of this global type for example Profile variables are generally for those variables that are needed for autoguiding 18 4 Parts of the software functional units There are some well defined functional units in the device In the next sections You can read about these functional u
27. aning of the files can be found in 4 4 Files list screen the screenshot above There can be 16 file entries at a time The list of the used file entries is shown in the first 6 rows of the screen If there are more than 6 of them the list could be scrolled an up or downward triangle shows on the left where the list can be srolled The content of the rows Date and time of creation Might makes the identificaton of files easier Atright optionally a sign about the state of the file These can be O L this file is the last opened one there is no open file O OP this is the currently open file O the file is broken has error Can not be opened but a part of its content may be donwloaded This can occur when an open file has not been closed or written properly for example at a sudden power loss Checking the type of the error the PC application can be used At the bottom above the functions of the buttons the free memory is displayed in kilobytes and in percentage of the whole memory This is not refreshed shows the state at entering this screen 34 The files in the list are ordered by their unique ID This value is constantly increasing with every new file creation and gives the ability to indentify all new files from the older ones from even those that were downloaded to PC and then deleted The newest file is always the first file in the list at the top of the other regardless to its creation time value
28. dinate where the mount points to After all is finished both the directions and speeds are stored as the calibration data The correction speeds precision can t be checked diretly but the directions can In an ideal case these directions vectors are orthogonal to eachother but during the measurement the star may drift some due to polar alignment failure or due to the periodic error of the RA axis The constant speed drifts are mostly corrected by the measurement method After the calibration the orthogonlity measure is displayed on the screen as ortho in percent The interpretation of the resulting value is described later The calibration procedure can be interrupted by pressing ESC The mount will stay in the position where it was stopped The mount is tries to set back to its original position only after all the calibration steps has run If a calibration has run with no error a calibration data is present The data consists of the directions on the CCD s surface of the two axes RA and DEC and their actual correction speeds This is displayed on the screen as on the screeenshot at right The two directions are shown in the guiding window that is now used for displaying only these vectors Both are normalized to equal length displayed RA and DEC s correction speeds are shown at top right in pixels per second unit px s The next row shows the orthogonality measure of the two axes vectors This is c
29. e it may occur that the correction guider imaging frequency is so frequent that both of the correction signals could not be put out fully In this case the new correction signal gets active and the current is interrupted It may delay the DEC corrections if the RA must be corrected continuously Note there is a 62ms dead time between the two axes signals to let the circuit of the mount to react on them 33 5 1 4 3 Date and time screen You can set the realtime clock and date here The format is displayed on the screen year month day and hours minutes The seconds are also displayed but can t be changed After setting a new date the device checks it and limits the day value Always recheck the displayed date after changing it This screen apears right after power on from Firmware 01 21 If the filesystem is to be used set the date and time properly timestamps will be instered into the file Note changing the date ant time items takes place immediately If a file is open and data is being stored into it the timestamps will change suddenly causing the data flow getting a bit confused Only set a new date or time when no file is open or do it properly only once after power on 5 1 4 4 Filesystem s screen s This screen is for showing and controlling the files After startup and the date and time setting screen this screen appears If You don t want to store data into file press ESC again to exit into main menu The me
30. e CCD surface its brightness is derived from those The method of calculation the brightness is described later gain decimal 2 9 profile The same variable as the image gain at the Star Search screen They are identical changing one makes the other change too See at 1 3 2 exp decimal 50 4000 ms profile The same variable as the expo time at Star Search screen this is the exposure time They are identical changing one makes the other change too Note the frequency of refrshing the LiveView image can be higher than it would by the exposure time set This is because reading the 10x10 pixel field is done with 10 rows added in hardware and therefore it is more sensitive than at normal resolution So the used real exposure time in LiveView is always shorter than the desired value but shows the same sensitivity as would at autoguiding thr decimal 1 99 96 Threshold value to discriminate the resulting pixels for display The percentage is meant to the 8 bit depth 5096 will mean 128 The used threshold value is calculated by an addition of the minimal value of the full LiveView image and this thr variable s value Generally a low threshold value can be used to show faint stars but not the background noise On the screenshot above only the background noise can be seen avg or max or havg special switch As written above each resulting dislpayed pixel is derived from a 10x10 CCD pixel field T
31. elow 2 00 e the new contains a small beeper built in though not activated yet Types of the supplied camera cables e 8 wire black telephone flat cable with black connector Cbb e 6 wire yellow silicone covered cable with black connector Cyb e 0 wire yellow silicone covered cable with white connector Cyw e same as Cbb but producted after the year 2014 Cbb The table below is important only if You want to use different HC and Camera not from the same device pack The HC and Camera is advised to be used always from the same pack the following configurations would work only Cbb m m Cyb m m C OO Cbb gp m WHGodtam v vit iv new HC new Cam old HC new Cam wwHGodCcam X x x pot working Y must be working but not guaranteed X not working The devices may be damaged 2 New features in Fw 02 10 New optional star position determining algorithm Less absolute position noise no threshold required auto partial feature for high separation doublets and more tolerance to hard separable doublets FWHM is also available for each frame with a good approximation Firmware is ready for languages other than english Manual AG output control now works with PC App v2 10 DEC axis can be disabled for guiding with Num 0 see 5 1 10 3 Calibration works for RA only too LiveView frames are enhanced Fixed bugs gt 2x2 binned hot pixel cosmetics works now as it should
32. er is ICX279AL E Some info can be found here http www sony net Products SC HP datasheet 01 data E00752A3Z pdf Note ont the CCD there is the protector film by default You must remove it before the first use Cleaning the CCD s glass is done as for any other optical surfaces Avoid scratching Don t let any electrically conducting material or liquid fall into the circuit on the CCD and its pins The foam around the CCD gives some protection e Supplied cables O 1 piece of Camera cable black similar to a straight UTP cable Used to connect the Camera with the Handcontroller It s length is around 1 8 2m Some series had a yellow flexible silicone covered cable instead o 1 piece of ST 4 autoguider cable white to connect the Handcontroller and the mount with ST 4 compatible autoguider input About 1 5 meters of length O 1 piece of USB A PC side USB B mini5 HC side cable to the connection with the PC Used to update Firmwares download data files or control the HC O Somerelease include an EOS shutter cable with 2 5mm and 3 5mm stereo jack ending 2m length Can be used directly for Canon EOS 550D for example 1 2 Powering the device In normal use during autoguiding The device needs a nominal 12V DC power source on the HC s DC input connecor which is tip positive This is essential for the Camera for imaging 9 15V is also accepted but don t use higher voltage than 15V peak voltage max 18V The o
33. ethod we show the device which star we want to use for guiding by pressing SET From now the star is choosen and the guiding frames will be processed only partially starting from the previous positions Check out the four position indicators The bottom star is followed processed and the upper one does not affect the guiding Note that if there is only one star in the guiding window the partial method works the same as the full window so this could be advised to be used in most of the cases If the NEW image processing method is selected You can only set a new point for the algorithm and Partial is always shown because the NEW method involves the partial feature About the position indicators they are seen only when there is a star position calculated If no star pixels are found the indicator dots are not shown ol 6 More detailed about 6 1 CCD binning Hereby I try to describe the hardware binning operation modes of the Camera The following four modes can be selected Binning CCD area v Binned pixel size mode pixels um 1x1 752 x 582 4 85 x 4 65 2x2 376x291 9 7 x 9 3 4x4 188x145 19 4 x 18 6 6x6 125 x 97 29 1 x 27 9 The default is 1x1 used in the Firmwares below 1 99 Note that the guiding window is constant 48x48 pixels for example at 6x6 binning mode the guiding window covers half of the available vertical area 48 out of 97 pixels You can see the guiding window sizes on
34. ever ideal for the autoguider signals If there is a bright enough guiding star this wait time can be used to wait some until the mount can react and before the next guiding exposure should start Using adequate guiding parameters this value can be left constantly 0 Negative switch If checked this makes all the frames coming from the camera to be inverted like it was a negative film even at LiveView Use this eg when You want to guide on a sunspot Don t let the autoguider watch the Sun without a suitable filter and blending it will burn out the device as would do for Your naked eyes Note that the star search function will fail it is not designed for a negative image 50 An example for understanding the Full wnd Partial modes Let we have a double star in the guiding window probably using a short focal length guiding scope The full window processing calculates the following position The bottom star is the one we want to use for guiding Accidentally a close star appears in the guiding window as the mount moves upwards In this case the calculated star center is false as You can see The four pixels inside the edges of the guiding window s frame shows that point imagine a mark between the pixels Now we press SET on the Full wnd item A choose point text appears here and a little cross in the guiding window Using the direction buttons we select a starting point for the partial m
35. expsec waitsec exp sec Operation with ML Events Start AE state Exposure line Focus line 1 sec Ml sec expsec wait sec Iml sec exp sec Operation without ML but with enabled Random Displacement Events Req new New Req new New position position set position position set AE state Exposure line Focus line 1 sec exp sec wait sec exp sec With ML the case is almost the same because ML can be interpreted as a part of the exposure state See more in 4 5 about extra waiting due to RD 5 1 2 Autoexposure program list screen Here You can change or check the current AE program slot and its mode or start a multi type exposure program set 27 From fw 2 03 there are 4 individual AE program slots Below 2 03 it s like there was only the 1 slot Each has its own settings like shots to do wait time etc There is a mode for them displayed on this screen which can be changed by LEFT RIGHT buttons Mode defines the behaviour of a program slot when a multi type program set is started On this screen a star indicates which slot is currently active Running ONLY ONE slot s program Select one slot with the cursor and press SET The slot is the currently active now Press SET again and the program can be edited at the AE screen as earlier After setting the program use the Start button Doing this way this program slot is started only regardless to its multi type p
36. ffset is always 0 0 Later the index grows but can t be reset to O currently If You stop the autoguiding and restart again remember that the star may be located somewhere but not where it was at starting the autoguiding In this case the autoguiding center changes and the new RD movements are done around that point The RD movement is not done exactly The new position may differ from the calculated one a little bit This behaviour is to save time at RD movement leaving more time for the exposures 31 5 1 4 Misc screen This screen holds every menu and settings that may be accessed rarely 5 1 4 1 Display settings screen The LCD and LED indicators settings are here Display submenu Leads to LCD and LED indicators settings Mode settings submenu This submenu contains switches for the different modes of operation of the functional units Time amp Date submenu The realtime clock with date in the device can be set up here The filesystem uses this for timestamping File menu submenu Handling the files in the DataFlash memory is done from here Active profile decimal 0 2 global The currently active profile s index Changing this value will replace all the profile variable s values The current settings are stored into EEPROM memory before the replacement LCD backlight decimal 0 99 global The intensity of the LCD backlight brightness The value is used in application mode of
37. g configurations The items for an axis Num decimal 1 99 profile The number of frames or star positions that should be averaged before a new correction signal is calculated and sent to output With this item it is possible to lower the correction frequency or to increase the effective integration time For the RA axis this value is generally 1 causing no averaging and calculating correction signal after each new frame For the DEC axis the averaging may be used because there must be only low and constant drifts here Averaging avoids chasing the seeing on DEC Disabling DEC axis On DEC only this value can be set to zero Doing so You tell the guider ignore this axis Calibration will do run only for RA axis DEC vector is set by rotating the RA result vector 90 dergees right and so giving always 100 ortho value If DEC is disabled it is indicated as shown here The DEC drifts are not shown but are still being measured tol real 0 01 9 99 pixel profile Abbreviation for tolerance This is a threshold value in both directions to the center zero drift that means an interval in which the device handles the drift with tolerance There are more modes of behaviour inside the tolerance interval which is described later aggr decimal 1 200 profile Abbreviation of aggressivity This is a scalar factor that multiplies the calculated correction signal s length This item trims the guiding
38. g time will stay at 1 second at paused state Activating Continue will clear the paused state or the signal to pause before the next exposition If it was in paused state the next exposure starts immediately Note if the RD function is enabled the next movement is started before the program reaches paused state The currently shown program slot number is displayed at the right top in the header If an AE program is running the bottom line there is information about the current state of the active program slot o on the left one character showing the current state of the AE program W wait time is counted down m mirror lockup time is counted down E exposure time is counted down and the next one the actual physical shutter signals nothing both shutter signals lines are inactive O only the shutter focus line is active Q both lines are active O inthe middle the next or current exposure s index and the exposures to do O the active program slot number P n This can be different from the shown slot number which s parameters are displayed currently o on the right the remaining time of the current state in seconds rounded up 26 Below there are some example diagrams for the running of the AE program in different cases Time axis is the horizontal line Operation without ML mirror lockup 0 0 Events Start AE state Exposure line Focus line 1 see
39. he 10 rows are added in hardware but there are different modes of processing the 10 horizontal pixels values and the resulting pixel value will be avg the average of the 10 horizontal pixels max the maximum of the 10 horizontal pixels havg hot pixel rejected average the maximal value is replaced with the surrounding ones in this 10 horizontal pixel block The average mode gives the best resized image content and is smooth enough but it can suppress tiny stars that consist of only some pixels So may hot pixels also be suppressed 41 The maximum mode is for displaying every tiny or single pixels which can be a faint star so as a hot pixel use this mode carefully Moving slightly the telescope will show which pixel is due to a star it moves with the scope and which is a hot pixel stays in place The new havg mode can be used if single hot pixels are disturbing but don t forget it suppresses very faint star s highest pixel value as well and they may become almost invisible e Select button Activating it a little window appears on the LiveView image inverted that can be moved along the CCD area with the direction buttons Select guiding window text is shown This window selects the guiding window s position when SET is pressed again The following of the star in it if any is started and the Guiding screen is activated By pressing ESC You ca
40. he Camera s horizontal X axis is parallel to the RA of the mount this can be used to set the polarity of the axes For example using a mirror will need one axis to be inverted Manual button By pressing it the autoguider signals stop and the direction buttons can be used to control them manually On the screen a MANUAL ESC to quit inverted text indicates this manual control mode You can exit this mode with pressing ESC Calibration submenu 45 Enters the Calibration screen to show and start or delete the current calibration data 5 1 10 2 1 Calibration screen The screen displays all of the current calibration data if there is one The Calibration inverted text on the top indicates this screen If there is no calibration data present no data text is shown see screenshot at right and only one option is possible starting a new calibration with the Calibrate button The calibration procedure is the following First the DEC axis is moved according to the settings given in guider settings screen AG speed DEC value This helps the calibration to move the desired amount without a knowledge If the star moved a little no backlash is on the DEC now the measurement of the DEC direction and correction speed is started After it the RA axis direction and speed can be measured now easier the device supposes that the actual RA speed is equal or less than the DEC s Less due to the actual DEC coor
41. ice at factory it s not the part of warranty 1 5 UPDATE mode Also known as BOOT mode The device always starts in BOOT mode by pressing ESC but doesn t start the firmware if You hold ESC button for more than 1 second If there is no valid firmware on the device UPDATE mode will start anyway with the text NO FIRMWARE This mode is used to update the Firmware or download refresh stored parameter data The PC application may make the running Firmware to enter this mode even during autoguiding be careful More on this at Error Reference source not found or in the PC app s manual 1 6 Hardware types There are two types of hardware of this device HandController and Camera The newer will show a little X right to the UPDATE MODE text to indicate the new hardware type Besides the HC will show a BOOT version of 14 and the Camera BOOT version of 14 as well See PC app s manual how to check this Lower BOOT versions indicate old hardware Note that the new hardware can not run Firmware version older than 2 00 due to the hardware change Uploading such an old firmware will succeed but the HandController will display WRONG FIRMWARE in update mode The difference between the two hardvare types are the following e the new can be turned on by remote USB while the old can not e the new can be used with a supplied 6 wire cable while the old works only with a 8 wire one e the new can t run a Firmware b
42. ls The pixels outside this shape are discarded but still displayed Camera OFF button 49 If the NEW image processing mode is selected the last FWHM value diameter of the star is shown above the guiding window as We the unit is pixels If star is not found on the last frame W is displayed 5 1 10 5 Extra page 2 The rarely used extra parameters can be found here To turn ON OFF the camera Useful if You have to plug out the camera cable for some purpose and then You can restart the star following from the latest position by selecting ON from here If You don t see the star again after Camera ON the guiding optics or mount must be moved or rotated more subscreen Goes to the screen below 2 extra page Save pos switch If not checked nothing is done If checked v and autoguiding is not in progress each new absolute star positions if any are saved to the open file Absolute means that the raw CCD coordinates X and Y are used instead of RA DEC Coordinate values are meant in the unit of CCD pixel About pixel sizes see 6 The PC application uses a block of this data to generate Periodic Error output files automatically Output behaviour into the file is undefined but not invalid if leaving the switch on and using the autoguider s other functions wait decimal 0 250 ms profile Wait time between the guiding exposures The mounts reaction time is n
43. m by clouds or jumps out of the guiding window by a mechanical push the guiding window stays and waits for the star appearing again in it no automatic re search is done The user may search for the star again with LiveView or Star Search This could happen often if You touch and push the mount telescope or the DSLR by hand and it is not stable enough After this the star may stabilize in its old position in guiding window but the window may be repositioned as it wanted to follow the star and that s why the star is lost If autoguiding is active the guiding window is stationary does not follow the star since it should stay near the center At permanent star lose no automatic re search takes place O If You started to use the Camera once do not just pull out the Camera cable for example to detach the Camera from the guide scope Stop the Camera before See 5 1 10 page 5 19 The Firmware handles sudden lose of the Camera but it is not safe to power off it that way it might damage some circuit part in the Camera 4 2 AutoExposure function AE The Autoexposure functional unit is also a separate part of the software On its dedicated screen can be set up started and stopped etc The shutter signals generated by this functional unit appear on the 3 5mm stereo jack output connector and can be directly connected to a Canon EOS 550D or similar DSLR with such a shutter input open collector line The AE s function is to shu
44. mal value If a limit is violated in editing mode by changing a digit s value the value is set to that limit independent of the edited digit The example above shows this type of parameter Real Real value with two digit fractional part Edited the same as for the decimal type Between the integer and fractional parts there is a dot character For example Time The default time type variable is always meant in 0 1 sec unit and is displayed this way For example In editing mode it behaves as the decimal type except that some digit s maximum is only 5 ie 59 for the minutes and there are dot and double dot characters between the digits Text This type can not be edited as the other Holds a fix text or the value state of it can be changed with the SET button So the text can show the value or state of a parameter 17 Can be a so called button item that does starts some function Can be a submenu item to enter a new screen down in menu tree For example the main menu consists only of this type of items Can be a so called switch that can be altered by the SET button This is a two state parameter item For example enabling functions or modes are controlled by this type of items Commonly a character indicates the OFF and a Vv char the ON state Can be a special parameter that can have a few number of fix values displayed as a text For example on LiveView screen this item c
45. mode too If these are located far from the guiding star and can t be seen on the gui mask mode they don t affect guiding drifts 43 This is a time diagram or history of the drifts of the guiding star realtive to the guiding center where the star should be held The latest 48 drift values are shown for the latest 48 frames for each axis One time step one frame is one pixel horizontally while vertically the drift values are scaled to the tolerance limit set The tolerance interval is shown right next to the frame with two short lines the size of it is 4 pixels to the zero As the tolerance value is changed so changes the appropriate axis drift diagram s scaling instantly This diagram is called guiding curve too Note the screenshot example does not show a real guiding curve on a star but on the background noise pattern only At the top left of the screen there is a progress indicator character which is rotating right as the new frames come from the Camera If this is still the Camera does not work at least properly To avoid close stars in the same guiding window disturbing guiding use the partial image processing method or the NEW image processing mode More on this at 5 1 10 4 The guiding window follows the actual star in it as written earlier If the star closes some edge of the window the window is relocated to center the star in it This star centering happens some time ie during the
46. n exit this selection mode The LiveView function is especially useful to roughly focus the guiding optics If a star s big spot is made to be small enough selecting it will allow the focusing to be finalized on the Guiding screen s window in normal resolution The LiveView can be used for manual star search in some cases it may be more comfortable to do it in here than with the automatic StarSearch function If You change to the Guiding screen by selecting an area the gain and exposure time values are copied to the guiding parameters as well as the threshold value but this is set at a minimum value of 10 avoiding background noise surely Note there is some higher dark current present in the vertical register of the CCD that affects the read image The rows have growing offset This is compensated by software and that s why some horizontal pattern steps may be seen on the LiveView image at low threshold values Don t bother with it it won t affect guiding performance 42 5 1 10 One of the most important screens is this one From here You can start stop parametrize the autoguiding run the calibraton etc Due to the much function and parameters this screen is splitted into pages that is displayed at the right bottom as pg 5 Changing the page is done with this item Guiding screen LEFT or RIGHT SET buttons On the Guiding screen there is always the guiding star or other monitored in
47. nd can be set in the HC as a parameter The scaling of this is defined so that 2 steps means one magnitude difference in sensitivity The full scale from 2 to 9 cover 3 5 magnitudes x25 The table below shows the physical imaging parameters for each gain value approximately gain conversion pixel saturation e ADU e 6l 70 180 8 27 665 9 175 40 Note gain 1 is not available from FW v2 00 due to possible early pixel saturation 1 4 Turning on and off the device After the device is first supplied with power source it goes to sleep power down mode nothing can be seen and there are no output signals The cables can be safely plugged in or out Turning ON the device Press ESC button The program will start in application mode if the HC contains valid Firmware The version of it is displayed for 2 seconds then the first screen appears see later You can skip 2 sec waiting with pressing ESC one more If the device does not contain valid Firmware or it was faulty it starts in update mode which is shown on the LCD In the center of the display there is a NO FIRMWARE text indicating the case If ESC is pressed continuously for more than 1 second the device starts in update mode Error Reference source not found Using this starting procedure is not required because the updater PC application will force to restart the device in this mode If You happen to enter this mode hold down S
48. ng for RD Autoguiding AG Autoguiding active Requiring new position vuU gt Wait state W On new position Start Exposure Autoguiding active m or E Some behaviour read from the diagram e If the RD is disabled Requiring new position will fail there is no synchronization between AE and AG e The RD as a program must be enabled only at one moment the only horizontal line the movement is done using parameter values at that time moment Changing the parameters or enabling disabling it any other time will not affect anything e The Autoguiding works in a special mode when a displacement is in progress It starts to autoguide to the new position automatically with the current parameters but the guiding is stopped right after both of the correction signals axes got inactive at least for a moment since the start of the movement The new star position that is not the exact calculated position is then measured for max 2 seconds and the guiding is continued in that position and the Autoexposure is left to go on This method shorten the displacement time and gives more for imaging 22 5 Menu tree The menu is structurized around the function units From the main menu You can access these main functional units control screens besides other subscreens and menus Here is a drawing of the important part of the menu structure Main menu Power off Autoexpos
49. nits for the sake of a better transparency 4 1 AutoGuiding function AG The main function of the device is Autoguiding It has its own process runs independently of the other including the User Interface handling the Camera is it s job exclusively so the program of the Camera is the part of this functional unit The guiding star s image is processed by the Camera The guiding program in the HC uses the calculated star position to control the mount with the ST 4 compatible autoguider port There is a dedicated screen for Autoguiding on which everything can be controlled that directly affects guiding This is the guiding screen can be reached with two SET keypresses Main menu Guiding Guiding menu Current guiding gt Guiding screen is indicated by a GUI text in the top right corner and a 48x48 pixel window monitoring something on the left of the screen There are more pages of this screen more on this later Important notes O If the Camera is active and there is a star in its guiding window an area on the CCD field it will follow the star with repositioning the guiding window even if the autoguiding is not started Because of this the monitored image of the guiding star within the 48x48 pixel window may be shown as replaced immediately but this does not affect anything it is only made by display This star following is a part of the software can t be turned off If the followed star is lost gets too di
50. omewhat aberrated eg a simple fast achromat or set a little bit out of focus The optimal FWHM value is somewhere between 2 and 3 o3 7 Planned developments The Firmware for the device is continuously developed There are planned functions that are not implemented yet so are missing from the current Firmware The direction of the development is influenced by the feedbacks from the users Currently the following useful functions are planned for implementation not all listed e Multi star guiding mode Under development yet A new option to use more stars optimally automatic from the full field to reduce position noise Simulations show that is s very effective for a large amount 10 15 of faint visible stars Only for short guiding scopes and long exposure time Not effective for a single bright star in the field e The above mode involves an advanced Star Search function that automatically classifies stars and excludes wrong doublets and chooses the most suitable ones e Automatic imaging parametrization and on the fly gain trimming to avoid Saturation that causes some distortion 54
51. ose can be opened at a time which is accessed by all the processes for data inserting The open file stores several types of data dependent of the parameter settings to store one or more night s events to make statistics search for bugs or just check the accuracy of the autoguiding or its parameters May be used to optimize Your parameters offline The files have their own menu where details can be seen size dates downloaded state new file can be created file deleted opened or closed It is advised to download these files to PC as frequently as possible with the PC application to make enough free space for the forthcoming nights There is a date and time settings screen where the realtime clock with date is to be set This is essential for timestamping the files data to a proper identification of the stored data later After power on this screen appears after then the file menu when You can open a file for example the last opened or a new one If You skip opening a file every function will work but no data will be saved 21 4 5 Cooperation of the functional units The three main functional parts AG RD AE need to work synchronized if the RD is enabled This communication is shown below in a simple diagram the time axis goes downside Autoexposure Random AE Displacement RD Start moving to Program start new position c gt Special mode Autoguidi
52. p 1 3 Electrical characteristics 1 3 1 Specification of the HC and Camera Values for HC with BOOT version 14 Notes currently the is no power saving features implemented All DC input current values are for a nominal 12V input These currents change with the input voltage po Min Typical Max wi Notes DCpowersupply 9 12 5 V 7 Active input current no ligh 96 160 mA 1345 fulllight 109 160 mA 1345 HConlyinputcument noligh 27 Jma ji fulllight 33 mA 1 Power down mode with USB 10 mA woUSB 6 JX mA ST outpuldowncurnt 53 ma f6 Shutter out pull down current 11 mA 6 with connection to PC via USB active means an active Camera autoguiding or LiveView the value changes as some parameters do gain exp time there is a fuse in the HC for a TTL low input level below 0 8V 5V the peak input voltage MUST NOT exceed 20V dou WP Values for HC with BOOT version 13 or below o0 Min Typical Max jut Notes DGCpowersppy 9 12 15 JV _ 7 49 Rave npr eurent HS 200 mA 1234s HConlyimputcurnt 27 mA 12 Powerdown current with USBL 9 mA without USB 6 j mA REDdispaybalight 0 30 ma CAMBER display backlight 0 7 mA ST outpuldowncurnt 11
53. pends on many things gt LiveView s exposure compensation is now good for all the binning modes When the guiding window changed its position the pos limit and inhibit time 0 5 sec was wrong A short list about the main features of the pre release 1 99 compared to the previous one 01 22 O Hardware binning operation modes implemented into the Camera O Automatic continuation of following the star in the old position after a LiveView usage without setting a new guiding position when re entering the guiding screen o More fine LiveView dark compensation Keeps the image vertically flat O Better CCD interlaced readout technique for more precise guiding frames o Camera OFF is displayed wherever is necessary o 5 page extra is introduced for the guiding screen s Guiding Current guiding The changes are gt Camera can be turned ON and OFF manually on this page The position of the guiding window is memorized except between binning changes gt The wait time variable is moved to page 5 Most of the users don t need this at page 1 O The guiding window display mode can be changed now from all the pages O The guiding window display mode maxY is renamed to profile as the image shown is the guiding image s vertical profile This is NOT a histogram o The used threshold level is shown as an inverted horizontal line at the profile display mode See above
54. re enter a screen if You had left it accidentally O The method of calibration is modified now it s more immune to temporary star lose position evaluation bettered and the result s precision axis direction is displayed O Modified RD method it does not move the guide star to an exact position instead it moves it only close to it to minimize the dead time between the exposures that was rather long in wind or at bad seeing parametrization O Real time clock 0 1s resolution and date to timestamp the data stored in the open file O Basic filesystem and selection only at startup The open file will store the guiding drifts and the calculated autoguider output signal lengths To download the files use the PC application v1 22 O Bugifx some more byte parameters were not stored correctly at power off From 01 12 O Three profiles available now to store parameter settings individually Can be used as presets for separate guiding configuration off axis guide scope s etc O AG speed can be set independent for each axis with 0 01 step size any non standard correction speed can be set O The drifts history diagram is now displayed scaled to the tolerance value O Pause Continue button added to the AutoExposure screen during paused state the AE program parameters can be changed O Additional wait time can be set between the guiding exposures letting the mount to react before the next exposure Useful to
55. re 6 buttons and 6 so called indicator LEDs next to them The buttons are for navigation and controlling of the device while the LEDs indicates some action of it for visual checking These are the following o ESC Functions back cancel or exit Main function exiting from the current screen blue LED indicator shutter focus line active feedback default o SET Functions enter into sub menu choose set activate start editing Main function activating the selected item on the screen green LED indicator shutter exposure line active feedback default o UP DOWN arrows Functions select prev next item inc dec digit in editing mode DEC manual guiding Main function navigation between the screen s items red LED indicators DEC axis correction output line s active Shows what is physically on the autoguider output O LEFT RIGHT arrows Functions changing the value of the selected item select prev next item moving the cursor in editing mode RA manual guiding red LED indicators RA axis correction output line s active Shows what is physically on the autoguider output 3 2 Main conception of the User Interface The display and controlling of the device is menu based By default there is always an active screen holding one selected item on it for most of the screens The selected item is always shown inverse This is something like a cursor for the actual screen items The selected item can be
56. rogram mode settings All the exposures will be taken and the active program slot will remain the same After taking all the exposures of this slot the AE will go idle stopped Running MUL TI type program set Set up edit all the program slots You want to use Then change their program modes with LEFT RIGHT set the active program slot and start it with Start from item The previous AE screen is shown where You can see what the AE is doing The following behaviour is used for each program slot mode all take all the exposures in this slot then go to next slot single take a single exposure by this slot and go to next slot do nothing go to next slot means slot not used Go to next slot says that the active slot number is increased by one Wrapping is used 1 comes after 4 When all the exposures are done in each used slot AE stops At starting time the exposures done counters are reset to zero for every slot Here is some example for better understanding Program slots are set as shown below program slot 4 is not used in the examples e Taking two type of exposures in separate blocks Start the program set as shown on the right First all the expos from prg slot 1 is taken since it is active 10 times 5 minute with 3 sec wait time Next slot is 2 then all the expo s from prg slot 2 is taken 20 times 2 minute expos Next slots 3 4 are unused all the expos are done yet in the progr
57. s can be eliminated automatically at the combination averaging of the single frames These pixels will be located at different position on each frame relative to the object after registering alignment Similar to this overcompensated pixel caused black holes are eliminated also and the noise effect of wrong dark frame subtraction is smoothed The non uniformity of pixel sensitivity causes extra noise pattern that can be suppressed smoothed too 20 Using very short focal length objective and a sensor with Bayer matrix color filter can cause false coloured star spots as they are easily imaged into a single pixel By moving the image over the filter matrix will lower this color noise On photos taken without RD some small pattern of the background noise is a typical effect This may be caused by the changing gravitational flex in the system using a guide scope and a separate imaging telescope or image movement rotation around the guiding star due to not enough precise polar alignment Some effect of using a noisy flat field is also smoothened by RD RD works together with the Autoexposure and Autoguiding functions if enabled At disabled state it does not affect any part 4 4 Filesystem FS As its name shows it is a data storage function of the device There is 2 088 960 bytes of free Flash memory for the files data In the filesystem there can be a maximum of 16 file entries Only one of th
58. s displayed separately Note that the P n item at the bottom of the AE prg list screen shows the active program slot that is currently used You can t change the active slot if AE program is running but can change the mode of the slots After releasing the expos with Continue the suspended expo is done anyway just as for the old single slot mode Notes Wait time mirror lockup time can be different for the slots Please make sure You set proper values The very first wait time is always 1 second right after starting a program set Multi type program set is not available for AstroTimer mode The last active slot is used when You enable AstroTimer mode You can use RD dithering with multi type program set RD will change for a new position between every single exposure during the wait time 29 5 1 3 Random Displacement RD screen About the meaning of RD see 4 3 Below are the screen s items and detailed descriptions e Enable switch profile To enable or disable the RD function If enabled rigth after the currently running exposure in AE has ended this generates anew guiding position for the guide star e Uniform square or Square snake text profile The used method to generate the positions The two above can be set e width real 0 01 99 99 profile The width or size of the patterns It is interpreted differently by the two modes Uniform square mode It means a quasi uniform distribution of poin
59. sition is always a fractional any subpixel position is allowed The autoguiding can t be started if the Camera sees no star lt lt button The display mode of the window at left is changed by this item pressing SET on it see display modes at 5 1 10 pg 5 button By selecting this item and pressing LEFT RIGHT or SET the active page of the Guiding screen can be changed This item can be found on each page at the same position 5 1 10 2 Camera calibration page 2 5 The Calibration s function is to determine the relationship between the sky axes and the Camera coordinates and the actual correction speeds for both sky axes It is required to make the device know how the mount will react on the autoguider signals and know how the guiding star will move on the CCD This screen contains the main elements of setting this camera orientation data The screen items are the following Invert RA invert DEC switches When enabled they invert the apropriate axis autoguider signal direction It is important to know that these inversions are made just before putting them physically to the output and so they will invert all the signals generated by any part of the software If a calibration data is used these need to be disabled Inverting one of them may be necessary only after a meridian change of the mount pointing to the same point of the sky but physically differently At manual autoguiding setup when t
60. te set in the mount s controller Any non standard rate can be set with 0 01 step size The RA speed can t be set under 0 01x while for DEC it is allowed and means that DEC speed always equals RA speed See the screenshot for the case e CCD binning 1x1 2x2 4x4 6x6 profile The used physical CCD binning size Change its value with LEFT and RIGHT buttons CCD binning change takes place only if You altered the value and You are leaving this screen with ESC Then the device will pop up a question to ensure If the anser is Yes the Camera changes binning mode immediately current autoguiding and star following must be stopped and lost Changing the values take effect immediately if no calibration is in use If there is no calibration data the operation mode below is active Axis aligned manual setup If You want to set up the autoguiding manually You can skip using calibration In this case this screen s values give information about the actual correction speeds The RA direction must be horizontally X axis and the DEC vertically Y axis aligned The actual RA speed Spdra changes as a function of the object s DEC coordinate DEC This RA speed must be calculated and set up by the user manually The formula is the following Spdra Spdna cos DEC 38 5 1 8 Star Search screen After setting some guiding parameter that You want to use an automatic star searching function can be started from here The guiding par
61. the LiveView screen when selecting the guiding window As the pixel size grows one binned pixel so do the other parameters The thermal dark current is multiplied with the binning block size NXN but the total sensitivity of the binned pixel changes the same way There is some amp glow at left top due to the CCD construction You could see this in LiveView with long exposure time This also increases with the binning as a part of the increased sensitivity The left top area of the CCD may be not used if the glow seems to be too hard Due to the increased horizontal transfer time binned pixel the readout noise grows some with the binning size My measures showed less than 40 for the 6x6 mode so the read noise is still below 10 electrons for most of the Camera instances in any modes Using binning modes is advised only for long above 1 5m focal length guiding scopes or optics Use binning only if Your guiding star is way too fast moving and has a large spot Don t use it for short focal length guide scopes because it could only make the guiding accuracy lower 02 6 2 the NEW image processing method From Firmware 2 10 this option is available on the extra 5 5 page of the guiding screen This method is much more complex than the default OLD one I list the advantages and drawbacks of this mode Advantages e No need of a threshold value Only for display By construction the method automatically models
62. the window on the left This is a 48x48 pixel window in a frame Below the frame its content type is shown which can be one of the following Changing it is done with the lt lt item next to it gui mask The real CCD image of the guiding star Those pixels are shown lit bright that are above the threshold Actual threshold is calculated by adding thresh variable to the minimum of the noise suppressed background In OLD image processing mode see TODO these pixels belong to the guiding star and are involved in the calculation of the star position In NEW image processing mode thresh is only used to display the star This display mode can be seen at the screenshot above showing only a background noise Note due to noise suppression single hot pixels are not visible on this image profile A vertical profile of the raw image The maximum pixel value of the columns of the raw image is calculated and shown in a diagram The zero dark level is near the top and the saturated pixel level is on or near to the bottom The horizontal line in the window inverted pixels shows the actual threshold value for each frame Note the diagram is NOT a histogram but a vertically projected map of the raw image This mode could be used to trim the focus or roughly check the star s PSF Note using long exposure time more hot or warm pixels could be on the raw image and so in this display
63. ts within a square The pattern is predefined and is designed to cover the whole area uniformly even at low number of exposures The width stands for the width of the square s sides the unit is pixels in the Camera Note the physical pixels are not exactly square shaped so the Y coordinates size are scaled to be equal to X which is the horizontal axis For example width 16 means a 8 8 pixel interval for each axis relative to the autoguiding center where the AG has been started Square snake mode This pattern is not random but the pattern shown at right It steps on a square grid the step size is always the same The first step is to right RA axis and the next steps are counterclockwise around the t previously used positions In this mode width is interpreted as the grid distance or one step s size This has an other scale than the other mode be careful and check the size every time You change between the modes Each new guiding position coordinate is limited to 16 pixels close to the CCD surface s border to avoid star lose A new displacement is generated by the Autoexposure program when it goes into wait state In this case the AE waits until the new position has been stabilized and continues the program after it see the example at the end of section 5 1 1 30 The RD positions are fix so reproducable The positions are indexed in the device that starts from 0 at power on This first position o
64. tter Your DSLR synchronized with the device s functions The AE program runs totally independently of the other units by default In this case it can be used as a single automatic shutter device too can be powered only from USB as well The only case when the AE is synchronized with other functional units is the Random Disaplacement function enabled and the Autoguiding active The shutter program has two operational modes O Normal mode default all the shutter program parameters can be set and used wait time mirror lockup time etc the DLSR shutter is controlled fully by the LMG device o AstroTimer mode this mode is mainly for cooperating with the external shutter device called AstroTimer but other external device may be used In this mode the device does not generate shutter signals but other the shutter output is only active when the Random Displacement function is moving the telescope so it indicates the time when the external shutter device must wait In this mode there is only one parameter that can be set the time period between two RD movements It is shown as the exposure time of the program 4 3 Random Displacement function RD Also known as dithering It s goal is to move the telescope with relocating the guide star randomly between the imaging exposures avoiding to image the object time to the same sensor surface each time This has several advantages Some untouched or termporary hot pixel
65. ure Guiding menu Random Displ Misc menu Guiding LiveView StarSearch Guider setup p ae To navigate in the menu use SET and ESC buttons SET is to enter a subscreen while ESC is to exit the current one The previous screens and their selected items are stored in a stack by going back to them will hold the previous selection By entering a new one will have the default item selected on it Blue arrow shows an extra possibility to change directly between Guiding and AutoExposure screens This is called long ESC ESC button pressed continuously for more than 0 5 second To go to the main menu press ESC more times 23 5 1 Screens and functions detailed Some explanation for the next screen descriptor sections and its items With blue color the item as it apperas on the screen after it in caret separated with comma if it has O type of it see 3 2 2 O limits minimum and maximum after the caret information about the storage behaviour O ifnothing stays here the item value if any is not stored anywhere O global the variable item is stored at power foff but independent of the profiles O profile the variable item is a profile variable stored at power off changed by profile change For each screen description section there is a screenshot from the device right to the section title to identify the items more easily 24 5 1 1 Autoexposure AE screen To control the EOS compatible shutter
66. utput power of the DC supply must be minimum 2W at 12V but the supply may source higher currents than 160mA for a short time about 0 1s Be careful choosing the type of the DC power source it MUST BE well stabilized or a constant source A battery stabilized DC or switching regulator should be used An unfiltered only AC rectified power which has a heavy transformer in it may not supply the device properly this could lead to sudden reset turn off of the device or even damage the input circuitry For example a 220V input and 12V 800mA output rectified power supply could easily source over 20V peak voltage at low load which is harmful for the device Logic only mode USB connection Firmware update etc If the Camera is not connected or will not be used for imaing the USB bus can alo supply the device s logic circuit All those functions are accessible that don t need analog power imaging Works for example Autoexposure program data file downloading Firmware updating but autoguiding star search LiveView etc will not NOTE new type devices boot version 2 14 may fail to update the Camera s firmware if the USB voltage is well lower than 5V In this case power the device also from its DC input When the device gets power input DC input or USB cable is plugged in a short flash of the four LEDs indicates this The flash is also present at the Firmware update process when the device is reset before the next update ste

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