Hi Robert

Sorry for not replying earlier but I have only just noticed the thread, although the lodestar can be used to take images it is designed as a guiding camera, but should you wish to take images with it you will need some form of image acquisition software which PHD isn't. PHD is guiding software. You will have a software disk that came with the lodestar and there should be some rudimentary acquisition software on that but failing this there are plenty of packages such as IRIS on the internet that are free that will do a reasonable job. When imaging you set up a directory on the laptop/computer where all the downloaded images are stored ready for processing. The buttons you press will be dependant on the software that you use.

Hope this helps

Regards

Gordon