12
FINDING AND LOCKING A GUIDE STAR
1). Point the primary telescope to the target deep sky object (DSO). Activate tracking on the
equatorial mount. The guide scope should also be pointed to the same region in the sky.
2). Attach the par-focal eyepiece to the guide scope. Locate a brightest star nearby and adjust
the guide scope so the star appears in the center of the par-focal eyepiece’s FOV.
3). Replace the par-focal eyepiece with the SynGuider.
4). The image of the star should appear in the image zone of the LCD screen. If not, use the “+”
button to increase the exposure time until the image of the star appears. Use the NOISE menu
to filter out the noise if the image zone of the LCD screen becomes blank or too noisy..
5). Now is a good time to adjust the exposure time. Generally speaking, shorter exposure gives
better periodic error correction results. The BRI reading on the screen is a good reference. The
minimum BRI reading required for the SynGuider to work stably is 20. Try to bring the BRI
reading close to 20 for the best result.
6). Adjust the guide scope to bring the star to the center if it is too close to the edge of the image
zone on the SynGuider. This is only necessary when the ZOOM level is set at 1.
7). Lock the guide star automatically or manually using the LOCK menu.
If the guide star is successfully locked the SynGuider will enter the “LOCKED” mode. The
ZOOM level will automatically be switched to 4, and SynGuider will display an area of 64*64
pixels near the locked star.
OPERATING UNDER THE NIGHT SKY
