The new Hutech solar autoguider?

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The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by Cschur »

Just saw this on telescopes.net, might be worth checking out:

http://telescopes.net/store/hutech-hino ... uider.html

Anyone tried this yet?

Chris


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by Merlin66 »

I think there's at least one in use in Oz.
H0ughy (David) was looking seriously at one.....


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by Houghy »

Merlin66 wrote:I think there's at least one in use in Oz.
H0ughy (David) was looking seriously at one.....
yes i am and i am also looking at this
http://www.mcdougalltech.com/page2/page2.html

and http://www.mcdougalltech.com/page6/page6.html

i managed to get the PDF for the Hutech
Attachments
HinodeSGManual.pdf
(1.28 MiB) Downloaded 193 times


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by astrodanco »

Cschur wrote:Anyone tried this yet?
Yes indeed. I have one here. It is very easy to use and works extremely well. It locks onto the Sun and keeps it centered indefinitely. It uses a USB cable to plug into a 5V power source. I plug it into the same RIGrunner 4004 USB that I plug my mount into.


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by Gert »

Hello All,

I would like to build this myself. I have a Raspberry PI and webcam. So one would grab a picture from the camera find the sun disk center coordinates compare with the prev image and send corrections to the mount via the built-in USB. Even use an offset to center the main scope at a limb prominence. I was wondering if someone would have advice on public domain codes that would do parts of the task. Would the Simple-CV computer vision package be a good starting point to retrieve the Sun's position?
simplecv.org

Thanks & Clear Skies,
Gert


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by Sunwatcher »

astrodanco wrote:
Cschur wrote:Anyone tried this yet?
Yes indeed. I have one here. It is very easy to use and works extremely well. It locks onto the Sun and keeps it centered indefinitely. It uses a USB cable to plug into a 5V power source. I plug it into the same RIGrunner 4004 USB that I plug my mount into.
Would anyone know if the Hutech will work with Macs for firmware updates?


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by axlefoley »

I have still not seen the sun since I got mine about 6 weeks ago but got this from them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd3XB09 ... 1280&h=720


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by oc-lab »

Hello Gert,

I would want also to build a standalone version with raspberry pi and raspicam or arduino and arducam (less powerful but more adapted to build a small package with a simple switch on/off). If the prototype works and it is less expensive than Hinode, maybe with friends we will propose a "commercial" version, but it is too early to say that. For communication to mount, maybe it is more "direct" to use GPIO and optoisolator connected to ST4 port ? With usb, you can use an interface like GPUSB but it needs drivers for linux (I think drivers exist for linux but I don't know clearly).
For the moment, I propose a software, LuSol-Guide here :
http://www.oc-lab.fr/
This software is inspired from a personnal software for autoguiding on Sun with my setup. LuSol-Guide is completely rewritten in order to work with various mount (ASCOM) and camera. But because it is a new rewritten version, maybe there are some bugs... So you can (must!) download first the evaluation version and if all is ok, you can take the complete version.

Regards,
Olivier


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by swisswalter »

Hi Olivier

welcome to that wonderful site, have sun, fun and post more news about that interesting project


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by oc-lab »

Hi,

this site is really a wonderful site with a lot of solar information ! I read it from long time but I had not yet participate. I used informations on theses pages, to do, few years ago, a PST modification.

I like to make (during holidays only :-)...) prominences video during many hours, for example here :
http://www.astro-gresivaudan.fr/album/i ... ffichage=0

to do that, I used personal python scripts to auto guide with a small finder (50mm/160mm orion). Now, I propose LuSol-Guide that is a software that would work with a lot of camera and ASCOM. you can see it and test it on http://www.oc-lab.fr
Concerning the stand alone guider (like Hutech Hinode), the project is not yet very mature. I would want to inject in a Raspberry Pi with its raspicam my Python scripts. That is ok, but I must now use GPIO ports of the board to connect them to ST4 port. I will post news later, I hope with a prototype that works. After that, a friend would want to develop a "commercial product" with a "beautiful and solid" package. This is for later...!

Olivier


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by swisswalter »

Hi Olivier

very fine deails on your video :bow


Only stardust in the wind, some fine and some less fine scopes, filters and adapters as well. Switzerland 47 N, 9 E, in the heart of EUROPE :)

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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by solarchat »

Im using one at NEAF right now and LOVE IT! the Hutech guys are here with me. I ordered 4


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by sullij1 »

Dan- Thanks for the info on the USB power board.


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by Houghy »

solarchat wrote:Im using one at NEAF right now and LOVE IT! the Hutech guys are here with me. I ordered 4
were they doing any long focal length guiding?


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by marktownley »

Here is the manual for it... Looks interesting!
HinodeSGManual.pdf
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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by Cschur »

Interesting Mark. Id love to see whats inside! They seem to use two holes to input the sun, and somehow generate a 4 way tracking from this. Show me the guts! Can anyone take a photo of whats inside and post it? :o

Chris


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by swisswalter »

Oh my god


another mod on the way ;)


Only stardust in the wind, some fine and some less fine scopes, filters and adapters as well. Switzerland 47 N, 9 E, in the heart of EUROPE :)

from 7 am - 7 pm http://www.nanosys.ch

from 7.01 pm - 6.59 am http://www.wastronomiko.com some times vice versa ;)
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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by _Zakalwe »

It looks good, but is awfully expensive for a guider.

There must be a way of using a finderguider (finderscope with a guide camera in place of the rear lens) to guide on the Sun (obviously with some Baader solar film on the front objective!)?
Would running a second instance of Firecapture and using blob detection work?


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by axlefoley »

Cschur wrote:Interesting Mark. Id love to see whats inside! They seem to use two holes to input the sun, and somehow generate a 4 way tracking from this. Show me the guts! Can anyone take a photo of whats inside and post it? :o

Chris

Chris I will have a look and see it it comes apart easily, but not sure if I want to pull mine apart.

Al


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by axlefoley »

It has 4 Phillips screws on each end but I really don't want to pull it apart.

Al


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by oc-lab »

Hi Zakalwe,

You could find above or in this post :http://solarchat.natca.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=11115 a link to my software offering the possibility to auto guide on the sun with finderscope and webcam. It works to guide over many hours with a little finderscope in order to make time lapse on prominence (tested with finderscope f=180mm and imaging system Lunt80+barlow, f>1000mm) :
http://www.oc-lab.fr
You could test the trial version to evaluate it.

Bye,
Olivier

_Zakalwe wrote:It looks good, but is awfully expensive for a guider.

There must be a way of using a finderguider (finderscope with a guide camera in place of the rear lens) to guide on the Sun (obviously with some Baader solar film on the front objective!)?
Would running a second instance of Firecapture and using blob detection work?


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by _Zakalwe »

Thanks Olivier,

I'll have a look at that!


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by solarchat »

I thought the Hutech guider was expensive too until I used it at NEAF. I immediately ordered 2 of them on the spot. They worked perfectly with almost no interaction on my part and no computer.


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by marktownley »

I've just used one of these all day for outreach at the International Astronomy Show - they're fantastic! So much so that they sold out at the show and also several people have one on order. I now have one in my possession that will be used everytime I use the solar scope. I shall be doing a thorough review of it in the near future. :)


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by swisswalter »

hi Mark

great to hear. do they work with a G11 ? What is needed next to the autoguider ?


Only stardust in the wind, some fine and some less fine scopes, filters and adapters as well. Switzerland 47 N, 9 E, in the heart of EUROPE :)

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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by Cschur »

Mark, C'mon, get out that Phillips head screwdriver...


Chris


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by marktownley »

swisswalter wrote:hi Mark

great to hear. do they work with a G11 ? What is needed next to the autoguider ?
Hi Walter, The manual says it is compatible with Losmandy. I will bring it with me on the 16th then we can have a mess around with it ;)


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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by swisswalter »

Hi Mark

thank you very much, that will be interesting


Only stardust in the wind, some fine and some less fine scopes, filters and adapters as well. Switzerland 47 N, 9 E, in the heart of EUROPE :)

from 7 am - 7 pm http://www.nanosys.ch

from 7.01 pm - 6.59 am http://www.wastronomiko.com some times vice versa ;)
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Re: The new Hutech solar autoguider?

Post by MAURITS »

Hallo, I know this is an old toppic, but:

Can I ask you a question about the Hinode Solar Guider?

I have one since years, and it works still perfect.
There is a long white cable from the Hinode to the handcontroller.

I will make a very short cable from about 6” cable (cord) between the two connectors, because the controller is now mounted on the telescope.

So my questions are: *Do you know the perfect name of the original connectors that are used on the original white long cable?

*Do you know the name of this white cable (cord)?

With this information I can order somewhere the right connectors and a 6” piece of this cable …

Thanks a lot for reading,


Regards,
Maurits

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