Re: [APML]: Anyone Autoguiding a G-11 with a Pictor XT?

[Wil Milan <wmilan@airdigital.com>]

The Astro-Photography Mailing List
------------------------------------

> Has anyone had any success autoguiding a G-11 or GM-8 with a Pictor 208XT or
> 216XT? A friend and I have been trying to get this to work without any luck.
> I'd like to know if it works for anyone before I waste any more time trying
> to debug it.

Are you using a relay box (or the Meade "solid state relay" box)
between the Pictor and the G-11? If not that could be the
problem. Pictor guiders have a voltage output rather than a relay
output, and the voltage output has fried the mount electronics of
many non-Meade mounts. Meade specifically states that you must
not connect a Pictor guider directly to any non-Meade mount, else
damage will result. 

Having said all that, if you don't have the relay box you may not
want to get it, but sell the guider instead. The relay box is
ridiculously expensive (I paid something like $100 for mine) and
it is a royal pain to hook up. There are point-to-point wiring
directions, *but the wires are unlabeled*, so you have to trace
each wire through to see which is which. At least that's how mine
was; maybe they're packaging better instructions with them these
days. 

In my case, after spending the money and monkeying with all the
wiring I found that the 201XT was a lousy autoguider, and I
finally did what you call "the right thing": I got an ST-4. It
took two seconds to plug into my two mounts (including my G-11),
took only a few minutes to learn to use, and worked the first
time I tried to use it. The ST-4 is simply a better mousetrap, in
my humble (but now painfully experienced) opinion.

Wil M.      
mailto:wmilan@airdigital.com
Astrophoto web site: http://www.airdigital.com/astrophoto.html
---
"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, 
the moon and the stars which You have set in place, 
what is Man that you are mindful of him, 
or the son of Man that you care for him?"  -- Psalm 8