What is Direct Guide™

No Autoguider Cables Required!

Software Bisque's Direct Guide is an exclusive technology for the Paramount ME or Paramount MX and CCDSoft Version 5 users.

Autoguiding a telescope mount has traditionally required the use of an autoguider cable, a CCD camera with camera relays and a telescope control system that has an autoguider input port. The autoguider cable is connected to the CCD camera's camera relays and to the telescope's autoguider port.  During autoguiding, changes in the position of a guide star's centroid issues corrections to the telescope's position by activating relays on the camera, which send a signal through the autoguider cable to the telescope control system's autoguider port.

Autoguiding via camera relays, autoguider cables and telescope guider ports with the Paramount ME or Paramount MX has the following disadvantages:

• Requires unnecessary hardware that is prone to failure

• Makes "open loop" corrections to the telescope's position (specifically, when a correction to the telescope's position is performed through camera relays, the only way to determine whether or not the position of the telescope actually changed is to acquire a photo then calculate the position of the centroid of the guide star, then compare this position with the previous position of the star on the detector).

Direct Guide eliminates the need for camera relays and often unreliable and prone to fail autoguider cables and closes the loop by issuing autoguider corrections directly to the Paramount's control system (which guarantees either telescope motion or an error message indicating "something's wrong because the telescope did not move").  

Minimum Requirements

If you own the Paramount ME or Paramount MX Robotic Telescope System and use a camera that is supported by CCDSoft Version 5, then autoguider cables, camera relays and the autoguider port are not required to perform accurate autoguiding.

Here are the “minimum requirements” for Direct Guide:

• Any CCDSoft-supported camera that also supports autoguiding (16-bit dynamic range; CCDSoft presently does not support autoguiding using lower dynamic range cameras such as video cameras).

• Any telescope mount that uses Software Bisque's MKS 3000, MKS 3200, MKS 4000 or MKS 5000 control system (this includes the Paramount GT-1100S, Paramount ME and Paramount MX mounts).

How is this Possible?

Configure CCDSoft Version 5 to use Direct Guide instead of Camera Relays.

Rather than sending corrections to the position of a guide star's centroid as an open-loop electronic pulse out the camera's relay port and then through the autoguider cable to the telescope's autoguider input, CCDSoft commands either TheSky6 Professional Edition or TheSkyX Professional Edition to issue the typically sub arcsecond correction  directly to the control system instead.

Issuing autoguider corrections directly to the telescope's control system, rather than through the CCD camera's autoguider relay port results in improved autoguiding, and eliminates the possibility of autoguider cable snag, cable failure and other potential autoguider relay cable issues.