Newbie question about guiding

Voyager
1

HI
I have been looking at Voyager for a few days now and must say its impressive! Im considering migrating from CCDautopilot because Voyager seems more powerful in many ways. I have one key question about guiding that I hope someone can clarify

In CCDautopilot you calibrate the guider once and that is it it will store guide vectors and handle vector changes after meridian flip and as long as you don’t change your set up you are done

As I understand it, this is different in that voyager has a different approach (philosophy) and doesn’t store guide vectors internally?? . Instead in the sequence tab you need to calibrate the guider at the start of the sequence and that this is also re-callibrated fresh after a meridian flip such that you calibrate inside Voyager at the start of every imaging and after a flip?

Have I got this right

my system uses maximDL for guiding

thanks for any insight

2

Calibrate once and have your settings saved in MaxIM or elsewhere (PHD2 for example). If your setup doesn’t change, don’t re-calibrate - that is - don’t trigger calibration in your Sequence. That’s it. See the Wiki: https://wiki.starkeeper.it/index.php/Sequence_Configuration

My setup is permanent and I have not re-calibrated the settings for my mount in over 2 years.

Roberto

1 Like
3

OK thanks for the help. So calibrate once in Voyager you mean?

is meridian flipping and guide vectors handled by Voyager because if Maxim isn’t connected to a telescope it doesn’t know it has flipped or not?

thanks

n

4

Read the Wiki N. I have not used MaxIM since v6 several years ago but in my version, the guide vectors were stored from session to session. There are ways to adjust MaxIM so that it adjusts for meridian flips.
Guiding is separate from mount control and meridian flips in Voyager. Set up your sequence appropriately and test.
Since using Voyager, I stopped using MaxIM altogether. Why do you have to use It? Camera control? Why not use PHD2 for guiding? It’s much more intelligent than MaxIM for that purpose.

Roberto

5

Thanks
yes re Maxim I’m using it in the past with CCDAutopilot and out of habit really… but always without MaximDL connected to my mount and in this setup Maxim can’t automatically correct guiding vectors after a meridian flip, but CCDAutopilot has handled this part of automation as it can reverse guide vectors internally after a pier flip.

Thinking about it Maxim would work in Voyager this way as well by connecting MaximDL to my mount and enabling autopier flip in the guiding tab but I would have to manually connect the mount in Maxim as far as I can see…

I have never got on with PHD maybe V2 is better?

Anyway in the end I went for using the SkyX with the camera add on for mount and auto guider control and the SkyX can reverse X on meridian flip automatically as long as the mount is corrected, so this seems like a good solution for me

thanks for the help

N

6

Glad you got it working. I dropped all external programs when I started using Voyager besides PHD2 and CdC. I think with SkyX you should be covered (but I have never used it).
Enjoy your imaging!

Roberto