EQStar User Guide www.astro-gadget.com
8
COM/LPT entry labelled ‘CP210X USB to UART Bridge (COMx)’. Name this telescope connection
‘EQStar’ for further reference and tell the planetarium to use this telescope instance.
http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/tutindex.html
binding the telescope to the planetarium program.
The mount of a telescope should be positioned in the ‘Polar Home’ position with the RA and DEC
axes pointing toward the pole star. The telescope counter weight should align with the north-
pointing mount leg, and the telescope should point toward Polaris. Many mounts have markers to
assist in accurately setting this position.
Once this setup is complete, you can select a target object in the planetarium program and request
the telescope slew to that object. After slewing, the object should be visible through the telescope.
For example, with Stellarium, once the EQStar configuration information is set up using the ‘wrench’
settings icon, telescope control can be enabled via the telescope icon. This brings up the ASCOM
control panel that shows the current settings of the telescope and allows manual control of the
telescope. Once an object is selected in the planetarium view, the telescope can be slewed to it. If
the object is not centered in the display, the ASCOM panel can be used to manually slew the
telescope to center the object.
4.2.
Long Exposure Astro-photography
To take long exposure photos of space objects, pointing errors of the telescope can blur the final
photo. To correct this, EQStar supports two automatic guiding approaches: automatic guidance
using the ST-4 port on the EQStar, or pulse guiding using the ASCOM interface. Both modes are set
from the EQMOD application panel. Pulse guiding does not require cables in addition to the USB
cable connecting EQStar to the PC.
See (
http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/docs/EQASCOM_Guiding.pdf
) for more details on configuring
these modes.
Automatic guiding can be handled via the ASCOM interface via guiding programs like PHD2,
MaximDL, and Guidemaster. These programs require snapshots of the target sky area to stabilize
the pointing of the telescope based on a guide star in the field of view. These snapshots can be
provided via an auxiliary guide scope with its own imager, an off-axis guider and imager, or primary
images of the target area.
4.3.
Guiding using the ST-4 port
The ST-4 port on the EQStar can also be used with an external guider like the Skywatcher standalone
SynScan guider.
To get the EQStar to accept guiding via the ST-4 port, connect the joystick remote and press and
hold the mode button (side of joystick box) for 5 seconds. EQStar will respond with a long beep.
