Fishcamp Engineering Guide Camera User manual
Starfish Guide Camera
User’s Manual
fishcamp engineering"Starfish Guide Camera
Table of Contents
Limited Warranty"4
Introduction"5
Installation"6
Hardware I/O Connectors6
GUIDER port pinouts7
Software Installation8
Microsoft Windows Software Support8
Mac OS X Software Support9
StarLink Tutorials"10
Navigating the ‘StarLink Control’Window10
How to - Take a Picture with the Starfish Camera12
How to - Adjust the Image Display14
How to - Work with a sub-frame of the image sensor.18
How to - Capture Calibration data for the image sensor20
How to - Auto Calibrate Images25
How to - Save images to Disk27
How to - Operate the Camera’s TEC cooler29
Operating as a Guide Camera"31
How to - Setup the camera for guiding31
Hardware interface checks31
How to - Setup ‘Guiding’mode on the program32
How to - Acquire a Guide Star34
fishcamp engineering"Starfish Guide Camera
How to - Calibrate the guider to your mount36
How to - Start Guiding38
Reference - Guider Windows"39
Reference - Guiding -> Summary tab view39
Reference - Guiding -> Guide Star Data tab view41
Reference - Guiding -> Guide Star Error tab view43
Reference - Guider -> Parameters tab view44
Reference - Guider -> Images tab view47
Reference - Guide History Window48
Reference - Imaging Windows"49
Reference - Imaging -> Filter Wheel tab view49
Troubleshooting"50
Autoguiding50
fishcamp engineering"Starfish Guide Camera
Limited Warranty
The Starfish camera hardware is warranted to be free from defects in materials and workmanship for
a period of one year from date of shipment from fishcamp engineering. Defects caused by misuse,
abuse, or shipment are not covered.
Defective equipment that is subject to this limited warranty will be repaired or replaced at the option
of fishcamp engineering if we are notified during the warranty period. The customer must obtain a Return
Material Authorization (RMA) number before returning any equipment. Shipping costs from fishcamp
engineering will be paid by fishcamp engineering. Equipment should be packaged in the original shipping
container if possible, and the RMA number must be clearly marked on the outside of the package.
The information provided in this manual is believed to be correct, however fishcamp engineering
assumes no responsibility for errors contained within. The software programs are provided "as is" without
warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied.
No other warranty is expressed or implied. Fishcamp engineering shall not be liable or responsible
for any kind of damages, including direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages, arising
or resulting from its products, the use of its products, or the modification to its products. The warranty set
forth above is exclusive and in lieu of all others, oral or written, express or implied.
The information covered in this manual is subject to change without notice.
fishcamp engineering"Starfish Guide Camera
Introduction
fishcamp engineering"Starfish Guide Camera
Installation
Hardware I/O Connectors
GUIDER
Pin #1
Back of Starfish Camera showing I/O connectors
‘Guider’connector - this connector is used to connect the Starfish camera to your
telescope mount so that it can control the mount movement. Guide corrections to the
mount are accomplished through this interface.
‘USB’connector - this connector is used to connect the starfish camera to your com-
puter. Power to operated the camera is also provided by the USB interface.
‘TEC PWR’connector - this connector provides power for the TEC cooler in the cam-
era. +12VDC with center pin positive.
‘RS-232’connector - this is a standard serial data connector for interfacing with exter-
nal devices such as filer wheels or motorized focusers.
Status LED’s - these indicators provide visual feedback on the camera’s operation.
The ‘status’indicator will blink when the camera is communicating with the host com-
puter. Each individual ‘direction’indicator will blink to signify that the telescope mount is
being commanded to move in that particular direction.
fishcamp engineering"Starfish Guide Camera
GUIDER port pinouts
#
########GUIDER
#Pin 1: Not connected
#Pin 2: Common (ground)
#Pin 3: RA+
#Pin 4: DEC+
#Pin 5: DEC-
#Pin 6: RA-
########Pin #1
GUIDER port looking at the back of the Starfish Camera’s I/O Panel.
The GUIDER port is used to interface with your telescope mount’s motor controller. It is
via this interface that guide correction commands are sent to the telescope mount.
While there is no universal standard interface on the various manufacturer’s telescope
mounts for this function, the most popular interface standard is the ST-4 style guider
port. The ST-4 guide port is named after the Santa Barbara Instruments Group ST-4
guide camera that was manufactured years ago.
The ST-4 interface uses a modular style RJ-12 connector and jack similar to telephone
cabling. They are different however. Telephone cabling uses an RJ-11 connector which
is a six position connector but with only the four middle contacts used. The RJ-12 con-
nector uses all six contact positions.
The connector on the back of the camera has the exact same pinouts as many popular
telescope mount guider ports. The Astro-Physics and Celestron mounts are examples
of these. As such, you will need a ‘one-to-one’interface cable to connect the camera to
the mount. That is the cable must connect pin-1 to pin-1. Be careful since it is possible
to have a cable constructed as a ‘reverse’pinout cable. These cables have pin- con-
nected to pin-6 on the opposite end of the cable.
The key point to note is that signal pin-2 is the common pin. Make certain that
this signal is connected properly to the correct signal pin on your telescope
mount’s guide port. Otherwise you run the risk of damage to the Starfish camera
or your mount’s controller. If there is an uncertainty about this, don’t hesitate to
contact fishcamp engineering’s technical support staff for assistance.
fishcamp engineering"Starfish Guide Camera
Software Installation
Microsoft Windows Software Support
PC support for the Starfish camera comes with a Windows XT driver and camera plug-in
support for various image capture applications. Regardless of which image capture
program you use, you will need to install the Windows XP driver first.
There are four files associated with the Windows driver for the Starfish camera:
1. FCUSB.SYS - Windows driver
2. FCUSB.INF - Driver INF file
3. ‘gdr_usb.hex’- this file is a firmware program that runs on the USB interface
processor in the Starfish camera. It is downloaded to the camera at startup time
from the host computer.
4. Guider_mono_revx_intel.srec - firmware program that executes on the image
processor in the Starfish camera. It is also downloaded to the camera from the
host computer at startup time.
All of these files are stored in the C:\Program Files\fishcamp install directory.
To install this driver, connect the Starfish camera to your PC. When Windows prompts
for a driver or indicates that it needs a driver, direct the PC to use the FCUSB.SYS
driver by steering it to the FCUSB.INF file.
fishcamp engineering"Starfish Guide Camera
Mac OS X Software Support
Insert the CD-ROM that came with the Starfish camera and double click the install pro-
gram’s icon to start the installation procedure. Follow the on-screen instructions.
There are four files that will be installed on your computer by the installation:
#1) ‘gdr_usb.hex’- this file is a firmware program that runs on the USB interface
processor in the starfish camera. It is downloaded to the camera at startup time from
the host computer. This file is copied to the /Library/Application Support/fishcamp/ di-
rectory on your computer.
#2) ‘Guider_mono_revx_intel.srec’, ‘Guider_mono_revx_ppc.srec’- these files are
firmware programs that execute on the image processor in the starfish camera. It is
also downloaded to the camera from the host computer at startup time. The files are
copied to the /Library/Application Support/fishcamp/ directory on your computer. Only
one of these files are used depending upon which processor is in your Macintosh com-
puter.
#3) ‘Starlink’- this file is the application software for the starfish camera that allows
you to operate the camera in order to take pictures or auto-guide. This file is copied to
the /Applications folder on your computer.
StarLink Application ICON.
fishcamp engineering"Starfish Guide Camera
StarLink Tutorials
Navigating the ‘StarLink Control’Window
The StarLink application displays a main control window that allows the user to change
parameter settings and get status information from the camera being controlled. It is
helpful to the user to understand basic navigation within the control window.
The application is designed for three distinct modes of operation:
•controlling a camera to be used as the primary imager.
•controlling a camera to be used as an auto-guider.
•processing captured images.
Main Operation view tabs
Sub-operation view tabs
This is the window where you will control most of all the operations of the starfish cam-
era. It has a set of tabbed views at the top of the window that correspond to the three
modes of operation. The following three modes are presently defined:
Operation Tabs:
•Guiding - tabbing to this view will allow you to operate the Starfish camera as a
telescope mount guide camera.
•Imaging - tabbing to this view will allow you to use the Starfish camera as a pri-
mary imaging camera.
•Processing - tabbing to this view will allow you to manipulate images you previ-
ously captured with the Starfish camera. This function is not yet implemented in
the current version of this program.
fishcamp engineering"Starfish Guide Camera
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