A lot has happened since the last post on this topic.
First off, I decided that rather than putting this lens on the mini-WASP array, I would piggy-back it on the C11 as I did originally. Why? Because otherwise I don’t think the poor old C11 rig in the south dome would be getting any use. Fine. I resurrected the old mounting board and got everything put together. Initially I had the M25C and SXV guider for imager and guide camera, and I got some work done in the Cygnus region. It then struck me that I might be better off using the Canon 5D MkII on the 200mm in the south dome to differentiate the work from the 200mm in the north dome. So I set up the Canon 5D MkII for an evening’s work and then switched on the SXV guider to start guiding – it was dead 🙁 Now that is slightly annoying as it was working perfectly just a few days earlier. Never mind, these things are sent to try us, especially in deep-sky imaging.
So as the Canon 5D MkII won’t connect to an SXV guider it was now clearly a good time to buy a stand alone Lodestar x2, which I now have installed in the south dome. The defunct SXV guider is with Starlight Xpress for repair, so that if in the future I want to revert to the M25C and SXV guider – I can.
Final part of the story. The Lodestar x2 doesn’t want to know about Windows XP 64-bit which I have on the main south dome computer. Fortunately I have an earlier Windows XP 32-bit astronomy computer just sitting in the study doing nothing – so that has been re-commissioned and is now back in the south dome again, this time running the Lodestar x2.
So there are now 2 computers in the south dome, one running the Lodestar autoguider, the other running the Sky 6 and driving the C11, and also Remote View for the Canon 5D MkII. Both computers go to a Gigabit LAN switch which then has a cable up to the study so I can control proceedings from indoors.
If we ever see a clear Moonless sky again I will be able to control both the north (mini-WASP) and south (200mm lens 5D MkII) domes from indoors and also run both systems in parallel.
Only 6 more days to go before opening up the BIG pinhole camera 🙂
I am struggling to get Win XP (SP3 32-bit) to accept my Lodestar X2. The install looks for SXCCD.dll, which only exists in the Win 7 folders. Is your setup using the SX drivers or ASCOM? Bob.
On the SX site there are drivers specifically for XP with the Lodestar. I do not use ASCOM I use the SX drivers. I have used the Lodestar X2 on the Hyperstar III rig, but I am pretty sure the operating system I used was Win 7 for that – so I don’t think I have used the Lodestar under XP. The one thing you will need to do (in XP) is to make sure you have removed all the Lodestar drivers before putting on the correct XP version or it just won’t work.