In the realm of astronomy, there areseveral “first” that are sure to leave peoplespeechless. Being involved in astronomyoutreach, I can tell you that one of themost notable ones is the first time aviewer sees the rings of Saturn. Wordsusually can’t describe that sense of aweand wonder. Another is the Great RedSpot on Jupiter.

We’ve all seen it in pictures, but toobserve it directly is an amazing experi-ence. Galilean moons, Iridium flares, andthe International Space Station wouldalso make the top of this list. For me, oneevent trumped all others, and has re-mained at the top of my “firsts” list: I’llnever forget my first view of the Sunthrough a hydrogen-alpha telescope.Being an imager at heart, I knew instantlythat I needed to be able to take images of

the Sun. This, unfortunately, led to moreof my “firsts,” and not ones I’d be happyto repeat.

The first time I tried to image theSun nearly became my last time to imagethe Sun. I didn’t yet have a hydrogen-alpha scope, so I started with a white-lightfilter. It was a full-aperture filter for an 8-inch SCT; quite a bit of focal length for abeginner. To make matters worse, I onlyhad an old dual-axis driven CelestronCG-5. The nail in the coffin was thegusty winds, exaggerated by a bad polaralignment and a tiny CCD sensor. I spentall of my time trying to keep sunspotscentered on that CCD sensor, battlingdrift with the hand controller the entiretime. When the processing was done,what had initially been a small field ofview resulted in almost nothing to show.

The stacking process works best if youcrop to sections that are in all frames, andin my case, that was basically nothing.Much more luck like this, and I’d havegiven up for good.

Fast-forward to NEAF 2014, when Iwalked past the Astro Hutech boothwhere something new and interestingcaught my eye. On display was the newHinode Solar Guider, a stand-alone auto-guider designed for visual observing aswell as photography. I was immediatelyback in that first solar-imaging endeavor,and a chill ran down my spine. Sure, I’veupgraded equipment since then, butsome of those main problems will occurregardless of the gear used. Still, this Hin-ode was a promising tool, so as soon asthey were available I picked one up.

The Hinode Solar Guider from Astro

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 37

By Austin Grant

Image 1 - The Hinode kit as shipped fromAstro Hutech, minus the mounting base, ofwhich there are three options.

The AstroHutechHinodeSolar Guider

38 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

THE ASTRO HUTECH HINODE

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Image 2 - The Hinode optics/electronics assembly box withcourse finder mounted on a Celestron 11-inch SCT.

Image 3 - The Hinode hand-controller hanging on a CelestronCGE equipped with ADM Accessories anodized knobs.

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Hutech arrived in a cool plastic case, withall the components you need to immedi-ately get up and running. To be specific,that includes the optics/electronics as-sembly box, hand-controller, USB cable,hand-controller cable, autoguider cable,and choice of mounting base. There arethree mounting bases to choose from:Universal, Lunt and Coronado. I wentwith the Universal base, but also added aCoronado base to use with my SolarMaxII 60-mm H-alpha scope.

The fit and finish of all the parts andaccessories was fantastic. The optics/elec-tronics box was metal, as were the mount-ing bases. The hand-controller was madeof durable plastic, so it was both strongand lightweight. Everything looked great,but I wanted to know how it set up andworked.

The Coronado mounting base was asnap to install. I simply removed theCoronado Sol Ranger from the clamshelland installed the Hinode base in its place.As for the Universal mounting base, I had

several options for using it. It isdesigned to fit into a standardOrion/Synta-type finder shoe,but none of my gear had one. In-stead, for whatever reason, my 8-inch Meade SCT, 11-inchCelestron SCT and ED80 all haddifferent aftermarket finder at-tachments. Luckily the Universalbase has bolt holes and a slottedbottom, so making it work witheach of these scopes was a snap.

Once I was able to mountthe optics/electronics assemblybox on any scope, I attached thehand controller. It has a nice loopat the top, and my ADM Acces-sories knobs on the CelestronCGE came in very handy as ahanging point. Finally, I had toconnect the Hinode to my auto-guider port and add power. Thekit includes a USB power cable,which will probably work well forany imager, because you will al-

THE ASTRO HUTECH HINODE

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 39

Image 4 - The Hinode kit is shown mounted and inoperation on a Celestron 11-inch SCT and CGEmount.

ready have a computer nearby. If you areusing this visually or imaging without acomputer, it needs a 5-volt DC powersupply.

With everything connected, I wasready to go. At this point, I should tellyou that my Celestron CGE is mountedon a concrete pier inside my observatory.

I decided to test it there before going mo-bile. Because I was already polar alignedand on a sturdy setup, I wasted no time ingoing straight to my most challenging

40 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

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Image 5 -Sunspot captured at a focal length of 5000 mm with aQHY5L-II CCD camera through a Tele Vue 2.5X PowerMate and8-inch Meade SCT, guided by the Hinode.

Image 6 - Another sunspot captured at a focal length of 5000 mm,guided by the Hinode.

THE ASTRO HUTECH HINODE

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 41

Image 7 - Yet another sunspot captured at a focal length of 5000 mm, this one in falsecolor, guided by the Hinode.

Image 8 - Coronado SolarMax II 60 H-alpha telescope mounted on a CelestronCGE, equipped a QHY5L-II CCD cameraand Tele Vue 2.5X PowerMate, ready forguiding with the Hinode.

THE ASTRO HUTECH HINODE

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scope. I mounted the 11-inch SCT andstarted up the computer. To actually cap-ture images, I used the QHY5L-II fromQHYCCD. The magazine has coveredthis camera before, and it still amazes mewith its high frame rate and high-quan-tum efficiency sensor. With everythingready to go, I powered on the Hinode.

To begin, I pressed the Finder buttonon the hand-controller, putting the Hin-ode into Finder mode. There is a coarsefinder on top of the optics/electronics as-sembly, where the Sun will appear cen-

tered in a yellow circle when you are close.Once you get close, there are five direc-tional LEDs on the hand-controller, withfour outside of a centered LED. As youapproach perfect center with the Sun, theouter LEDs indicate the direction youmust move the scope. It was a very intu-itive process and took less than a minuteto accomplish. If you are unable to see thehand-controller while centering thescope, you can press the Finder buttonagain to activate audible feedback. Here,the pitch increased as the Sun was

centered.The next step was to calibrate the au-

toguider. The instructions mention thatthe guide rate should be set to a lowspeed, but mine was already at 0.5X side-real, so I left it alone. I simply pressed theCalibrate button and let it do its thing.The LEDs indicated which axis and di-rection was being calibrated, and afterabout 90 seconds it returned to Findermode. From there, all I needed to do waspress the Guide button, and I was off tothe races.

42 Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY

THE ASTRO HUTECH HINODE

Image 9 - H-alpha image taken with the QHY5L-II, Tele Vue 2.5X PowerMate and Coronado SolarMax II 60, guided by the Hinode.

Image 10 - Another H-alpha image taken with a QHY5L-II, Tele Vue 2.5X PowerMate and Colornado SolarMax II 60, guided by the Hinode.

Image 11 - Full-disk (almost!) H-alpha image captured with theQHY5L-II and Coronado SolarMaxII 60, guided by the Hinode.

Image 12 -An inverted version of Image 11.

A cool feature I discovered after thefact was that you can save the calibrationfor a quick startup. There are two mem-ory positions, one for AM and one forPM. To save a calibration, simply holddown the appropriate button until a toneis heard. Then, for a quick start, fromFinder mode simply press Recall and theappropriate AM or PM button. Then youare ready to guide.

The installation was easy, the setupand calibration was a breeze, and the Hin-ode certainly looked cool as it attemptedto keep the Sun centered on my camerasensor. But how did it work? I’ll offer sup-porting details in a second, but I can sumit up with a single word: Brilliantly!

With the 11-inch SCT on the alreadypolar-aligned mount, I was mainly doingbattle with periodic error, sidereal-vs-solartracking rate, and any residual polar mis-alignment. Using the full focal length ofthe scope and with the sensor cropped to640x480 pixels for maximum frame rate,an unguided image of the Sun would driftcompletely out of the frame in less thantwo minutes. Turns out my polar align-ment wasn’t as great as I thought! Once Iactivated the Hinode for autoguiding,sunspots stayed centered indefinitely.There was some minor jostling around,but it can be attributed to scintillation. Icouldn’t believe how well the Hinodeworked! Still, seeing was poor, and I did-n’t get any publishable images from thatouting.

On my next outing, I removed theCGE from the pier and mounted it on atripod in the backyard. This more closelyresembled most of my solar outings,where I just plop the mount down andpoint it approximately north. This time,I mounted the 8-inch SCT, but added aTele Vue 2.5X PowerMate to the mix.That’s 5000-mm focal length on a non-polar aligned mount! I measured driftwithout guiding, and it was absurd.Again, after activating the Hinode thingswere just…there - right in the center, andthey stayed there.

If I’d had this kind of gear from the

beginning, perhaps I’d be giving StephenRamsden advice on solar imaging! (By theway, my friend Stephen Ramsden is thedriving force behind the Charlie BatesSolar Astronomy Project, likely the largestsolar-outreach program on Earth). Seri-ously, though, the Hinode just plainworks, and it’s simple to use. I got somenice sunspot images with excellent detailfor my modest equipment.

For the next few outings, I used theCoronado SolarMax II 60-mm H-alphatelescope. I used it with and without the TeleVue 2.5X PowerMate, and with the QHY5L-II in both full-frameand cropped mode. Because of the Hin-ode, the images were magnitudes morestable than ever before. More of the datacould be stacked, and I ended up withmore of my original resolution than I’m used to. The Hinode truly has made

solar imaging more effective, and morefun.

The Hinode Solar Guider from AstroHutech has turned out to be one of myfavorite astronomy tools. It has elimi-nated all of the controllable sources offrustration from my solar imaging work-flow. I no longer need to struggle with acompass and polar-offset charts in an ef-fort to get perfectly polar aligned in thedaytime. I no longer need to struggle withthe mount hand controller, trying tocompensate for drift, periodic error andbacklash. All I do now is set up the mountand scope, attach the Hinode, and startimaging.

If you find yourself dealing with anyof these issues during your solar outings,and I’ll bet you do, then the Hinode SolarGuider is surely a tool you need to checkout.

Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 43

THE ASTRO HUTECH HINODE