Moravian G1-0300 and MaximDL 5.x Guiding Problem

[blackhaz]

Dear Colleagues,

Hope you can help me. I have Moravian G1-0300 as a guider, as an off-axis guider on the QSI 532wsg. MaximDL looses the guiding star once I start "Track". It looks like it is a coordinate problem. For example, I "Expose" the guide star and see it in the upper left quadrant of the image. I click "Track", MaximDL sets the trackbox to 128x128 and the trackbox does not have any stars. Now, if I expose the star, again seeing it in the upper left quadrant of the image, and I click my mouse on the empty bottom left quadrant, which tells MaximDL that I anticipate the guide star to be there, then I see that star appearing in the track box.

It looks like the Y axis is inverted in the image coming from the Moravian camera, however it is not inverted in the image cropping procedures MaximDL uses to create trackboxes. I have successfully re-created the same issue a few times. This problem prevents autoguiding using MaximDL and CCDAutoPilot, rendering the camera useless.

I have tried upgrading MaximDL and Moravian driver to the latest versions and this hasn't fixed anything. Tried ASCOM Moravian driver, however the camera did not appear in my ASCOM platform.

I am totally lost. :'( I will try to call Moravian tomorrow and if they don't have a quick fix I guess I need to look out for a new guider.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

[KpS]

I met with the same problem. The cable connecting G1-0300 to the ST4 autoguider should have colors in reverse order.

[blackhaz]

Hi Karel,

I guess this is a different problem. I am using main camera relays to guide the telescope. G1-0300 is not doing any ST4 job in my configuration. Besides, the trackbox does not show any stars at all right from the start. (I guess in your case the star was escaping the trackbox, however I do not have any stars there to start with.)

[blackhaz]

Here I made the drawing to show the problem:

[KpS]

I guess in your case the star was escaping the trackboxExactly. Maybe help someone else.

[FunTomas]

Hi Max.

The problem is in driver for MaxIm DL. You have probably the bad version. We discuss it here http://www.astro-forum.cz/cgi-bin/yabb/ ... 6948557/30. MI made error with flipping image in camera. Try to download and install a old driver, if your new had this bug.
In fact, our problem was with G2 camera, but your symptoms are similar. It looks like same bug in other drivers, not only for G2 models.
Hope, it helps to you.

[Konihlav]

Hi Max,

I have bought (second hand) G1-0300 a month ago for guiding (I am using MaxIm DL v5), but so far haven't got any chance to use it (too busy with other stuff). Therefore I am interested in your findings as I may face it too.

I have experienced similar issue with G3-11K in MaxIm DL, but it was concerned to the whole frame readout (the entire image was flipped). I have solved it in advanced settings box in camera setup tab where I checked to do a flip after image download (I do not expect this to work in your case).

Then I heard of subframe related issue on G2-8300 that was driver specific. This should be fixed in the latest drivers (though the most recent ones are for G2r3/G3/G4 cameras).

I will let you know how it works on my G1-0300 (hope to use it today).

Pavel

[blackhaz]

FunThomas, I thought about it. Since v1.2 of G1 plugin for MaximDL they have flipped over coordinates indeed.

"Version 1.2, released on February 23rd, 2011
• Previous version of this driver returned image with coordinate system origin (coordinate
0, 0) in the bottom-left corner. This is the standard, defined by FITS format. But images
appeared in MaxIm DL vertically mirrored, because MaxIm DL software obviously uses
bitmaps with coordinate system origin in upper-left corner and also requires driver to return
images from camera in such format"

Probably they fixed one problem however introduced another one? I was looking for the previous v1.1 plugin however I can't find it anywhere. Moravian web site does not have a history of G1 plugins, only the latest is available for download. Konihlav, can you please check what CD you have with your camera? Probably its older than February 2011 and you have v1.1 plugin for the MaximDL 5? If so, I would really appreciate if you could upload it somewhere.

By the way, we don't need to wait for the night (and spend precious observing time under our beloved weather) to try. It is enough to try it on a daytime object to see if the camera creates the subframe (trackingbox) at the correct coordinates.

[blackhaz]

I have spoken with Moravian today. They are going to release new MaximDL plugin shortly, hopefully today.

[Konihlav]

Maxim, I have just tested mine on a gradient-like (bias) image as I miss optics and mount to get any reasonable daylight image and my findings is - it really doesn't work!!! so the same problem in my setup!!!

WTF - I switched from webcam to cooled mono to QHY5 to Atik16ic to G1-0300 (that seems to work pretty fast), but this problem pisses me off.

[blackhaz]

OK, Moravian just released the new plugin:

Version 1.3, released on Mar 29th, 2011
• Vertical image mirroring, introduced in version 1.2, were not reflected in coordinates of subframe.
This version also mirrors sub-frame coordinates to be in concordance with top-down
coordinate system used by MaxIm DL.

Download here:
http://www.gxccd.com/download?id=349&lang=409

[blackhaz]

Problem fixed. Guiding now works perfectly.

[blackhaz]

Guiding test on M81:

http://web.me.com/maximusatov/M81-single.png

10" Maksutov-Cassegrain in Prague 5, Kosire, single 5 min exposure without filters, F.L.=2642mm. Guiding with Moravian G1-0300 on a 10m star via 3 seconds exposures.

[Konihlav]

blackhaz: wow, that's a great result! KAF-3200 rulez!

I tested mine yesterday and after driver update it worked very well (except of some weird noise - black pixels - on bright stars).

[blackhaz]

Hey, I'm glad we got this working! KAF-3200 is kicking! I found Pavel Cagas from their technical support to be very effective. Probably he can help you out with black pixels?