The Telescope Drive Master v2 has arrived!!!

The second version of our TDM box is able to recognise autoguider control signals arriving through its input connector and these autoguider pulses can overwrite TDM control pulses of its own. But, between two autoguider pulses, TDM keeps the tracking speed of the RA shaft extremely strictly on sidereal or average King rate so you can select as dim guide star as you want. If the integration time of your autoguider would have to be one minute long just because there are 15-20 magnitude stars in the FOV of the guiding chip, no problem at all. TDM helps your autoguider keeping the track.

On the other hand, the autoguider can help TDM in case of long exposures (longer than 5-10 minutes) correcting air refraction.

So, TDM with autoguider is ideal symbiosis for creating absolutely perfect images applying extra long exposures. Please note: only LX200 standard output (TDM Out1: RJ-12) can be used simultaneously with autoguider control. SBIG standard TDM output (TDM Out2: SUB D 15) does not relay declination corrections coming from autoguider controller to telescope controller (but RA corrections are transmitted via TDM Out2 as well).

The other extended feature of TDM in v2 model is using lower correction speed: 0.15x tracking speed can be used if your mount is extremely calm, e.g. friction drive. (0.25x was the minimum correction speed in v1 model.)

Additionally, there are two different types of connectors (for LX200 and SBIG standards) to connect TDM to the telescope driver.

See detailed description on the page of TDMv1 and please read update information on "TDM versions" page.

Telescope Drive Master v2 Control Box