Starlight Xpress SXVF-H9 - Manual (Page 2)

Handbook for the SXVF-H9 Issue 1 May 2007
2
The SXVF-H9 is also the first high-performance astronomical camera to take
advantage of a super high-speed USB 2 computer connection. The USB 2 connection
offers a download speed increase of about 30x that of the original USB 1.1 interface
supplied with the HX916. The full-frame download time is approximately 0.6 seconds
and binned 4x4 downloads take only 0.1 seconds, so finding and centring are very
quick and easy in this mode.
Please take a few minutes to study the contents of this manual, which will help you to
get the camera into operation quickly and without problems. I am sure that you want
to see some results as soon as possible, so please move on to the ‘Quick Start’ section,
which follows. A more detailed description of imaging techniques will be found in a
later part of this manual.
‘Quick Starting’ your SXVF-H9 system
In the shipping container you will find the following items:
1) The SXVF-H9 camera head.
2) A power supply module.
3) A USB camera cable.
4) An adaptor for 1.25” drawtubes.
5) An adaptor for 2” drawtubes and M42 Pentax thread lenses.
6) A disk with the SXVF-H9 control software.
7) This manual.
Optional extra items include:
1) A serial port adaptor and cable.
2) A guider output to guider port lead.
3) An add-on guide camera head (includes items 1 and 2).
You will also need a PC computer with Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000
or Windows XP/Vista installed (NOT Windows 95 or NT4). This machine must have
at least one USB 2.0 port available and at least 256 Megs of memory. If you intend to
view the finished images on its screen, then you will also need a graphics card capable
of displaying an image with a minimum of 1024 x 768 pixels and 65,000 colours. A
medium specification Pentium with between 1GHz and 4GHz processor speed is
ideal. USB 2 PCI cards are readily available for upgrading a USB 1.1 machine, if you
want to achieve the best possible performance. Please note that USB 2.0 operates at a
very high speed and cannot operate over very long cables. Five metres of good quality
cable is the maximum normally possible without boosters or extra powered hubs.
Installing the USB system:
First, find a free USB socket on your PC and plug in the USB cable. If you do not
have a USB capable computer, it is normally possible to install a USB 2 card into an
expansion slot. Please note that it may be necessary to enable your USB system in the
computer BIOS (the SETUP menu which can usually be accessed at start-up). Many