Tracking & Autoguiding

[Purplehayze104]

Hi All

just a quick newbie to guiding question, i've recently bought a guidecam and run it through my 9x50 finder, after practicing a few times with the setup as so I can get use to how it all works, i've been wondering do I turn off tracking in EQMOD & let the autoguider do the work or do I keep the tracking on as well as using the guider ? just curious as get errors in PHD saying star not moved enough as was thinking could this been the reason ?

any help on this subject would be appreciated,

clear skies everyone

john

[swag72]

As you mention that the star doesn't seem to move enough in PhD, and you are using a finder you need to make sure that your calibration steps (in the brain icon) are large enough, When I used a QHY5 and finder, my calibration steps were set to about 2500. If they are set too low, then PhD will not detect any movement and so you get the error.

I'm not sure what you mean about turning off EQMOD and letting the autoguider do the work. Are you using an ST4 cable or pulse guiding with the EQMOD cable? If the latter, then you don't turn off anything, it just does it's thing with no input from you!

[nmoushon]

Do what Sara suggested for fixing the error. But no need to turn anything off. You want tracking on so the mount does most of the work. PHD will track the movement of the star and send very small adjustment to the mount to tell it to adjust it tracking.

[Purplehayze104]

arh ok thanks for the replies, I will try changing the calibrations steps to 2500 and see if that does the trick

sorry SWAG72 I use the cable that came with the mount/scope/synscan combination, its a serial connection one end to laptop via serial to USB converter & other end to sysnscan handset in direct PC mode, also wot I ment to say was do I turn the tracking off in eqmod, not eqmod itself sorry if I wasn't to clear on that & let the Guide cam send the commands to the mount to move it, also I use ST4 from guide camera to the controller box on my mount.

[swag72]

If you are using the cable from the handset to the PC that controls EQMOD as far as I understand. It's not an ideal solution, an EQDIR cable is more stable and that cuts out the handset altogether going direct from the mount to the PC. Then you are using an ST4 cable as well?

Have I got that right?

If so, there is no need for the ST4 cable as the other one from the handset to the mount will connect to EQMOD and guide using PhD.

[chrisshillito]

Yes, you need to have the mount tracking - guiding corrections are then made that increase or decrease the base tracking rate.

You can't ever guide with tracking off because the maximum guide rate is only siderealx1 which means you could never correct an error that requires a faster than sidereal movement.

Chris

[dennis1951]

What the heck am I doing wrong ???

Eqmod driver has pulse guiding chosen.  Eqmod driver connects to CdC just fine.    I am trying to pulse guide with a cable from Shoestring so no handset is involved.  PHD says mount IS connected but then a second eqmod driver window pops open  with an error message showing in the mount window area saying "Connect Error: Port Not Available."  

Should I just ignore this message and hope PHD works ??? 

The only way I can get the error message for  PHD to disappear  is to close CdC....then a new eqmod driver window opens with all the usual mount coordinates running.    But now I don't have access to CdC.     Something ain't right !!