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PART XI : ADVANCED FUNCTIONS
1.
Using the SNAP port on the telescope mount:
Several Sky-Watcher’s equatorial mounts (such as the AZ-EQ6 GT and the EQ8) are
equipped with a SNAP port. Users can use a proper shutter release control cable to con-
nect this port to the same port on the camera.
2.
Using the multi-purpose port on the SynScan hand control:
The SynScan hand control uses 2 pins (The SHUTTER and COMMON pins in the dia-
gram of
Appendix 3
) of its multi-purpose port to control the shutter release of a DSLR
camera. Users may use a proper shutter release cable to connect the SynScan hand
control and a camera.
1.
Press the “
UTILITY
” shortcut key, access to sub-menu “
Camera Control \ Configuration
” and
press the
ENTER
key.
2.
Edit the interval between each exposure (in MM:SS format) and press the ENTER key .
3.
Use the scroll keys to browse through a list of 8 groups of parameters. A sample screen-
shot is shown below:
The leading number (“
1
”) is the index number of this group; the “
mm:ss
” data is the ex-
posure time in minutes and seconds; and the ending 3 digits number is the frames to be
shot. Press the
ENTER
key to pick a group and proceed to the next step.
The SynScan hand control can control a DSLR camera to do astrophotography. It can accept
8 groups of “Exposures Time - Frames” parameters, and then controls the camera to take
batch exposures without manual intervention.
To use the camera control function, the camera must be equipped with a shutter release con-
trol port and can be set to the bulb exposure mode.
11.4 Camera Control
Connecting the Camera
Setup Control Parameters
Select a Group
1. mm:ss X 000
• It is recommended that the user verify the accuracy of the
2-star alignment
or
3-star
alignment
before starting the polar alignment process by locating several objects in
different areas of the sky. If the pointing accuracy is low, try to use another set of align-
ment stars for the
2-star
or
3-star alignment
process.
3.
The first row of the screenshot below indicates the index number of the group being edited.
The second row shows the exposure time of this group.
Edit Group#1
Exposure mm:ss