michael8554

Dragon is scheduled to dock on the 28th at 16:39 BST. The night before you might see it adjacent to the ISS on the 22:56 to 23:00 pass, though the Dragon is pretty small. Michael

RA not such a problem as always driving in the same direction but not ideal. Michael

Perhaps a long duration star loss during Cal could be the cause, PHD2 pauses Cal until the star comes back. Backlash - we're talking microns of movement here, too small to feel, so if you can feel backlash it's miles out ! Brand new ? Send it back with the guidelogs.

Thanks knobby Looks like there's a lot of Dec Backlash - 17 steps, one every 2.5 secs. This may be all that's causing the poor Calibration. Before Calibrating, you need to nudge the mount north until you see the star move, to clear the backlash. Your PA appears good, so Dec didn't need correcting. So luckily the RA moves that are being repeated in Dec weren't enough to mess up your guiding too much 🙂 So orient your guidescope so that E-W moves are roughly horizontal across the screen when pointing south at Dec 0. Then try the PHD2 Manual Guide in the Tools menu, with a large Step Size, say 5000. Move west enough button presses to see significant movement - is it only west, or is it moving north or south too ? Then try North moves, are they vertical moves up or down the screen, or is there east or west movement too ? If interaction seen, check out your cables, or perhaps try to simplify things by trying ST4 (only as a test, ASCOM is the way to guide) After you have RA and Dec no longer interacting and have a good Calibration, run the PHD2 Guide Assistant to get the right Minimum Move settings. It's all in these Best Practices from the PHD2 Developers: https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-best-practices/ Michael

I saw that LX200 was selectable in PECPrep, so I inputted a PHD2 Log File of an hours Guide Assistant run. Does anyone know how to convert the filtered and smoothed arcsec PEC back to a Meade LX200 .pec file, to load back into the LX200 ? Michael

Hi knobby You've posted the Debug Log, please post the Guide Log. But I'd hazard a guess you're ST4 guiding with a faulty cable. Michael

Polar Alignment Balance Atmospheric conditions Differential Flexture in that very wobbly guidescope mount. Michael

Well done, got there in the end, OAG was the right way to go. Michael

I don't understand why you want to flip it, your image is as valid as anyone elses, are you a sheep or a wolf ? 🙂 Michael

Here's one like yours, from a professional observatory. So everyone else except you has it wrong ! Only joking: It's to do with the number of lenses and /or reflective surfaces the light has encountered on its way to the camera. Michael

But of a puzzle, as I'd say Coma-like distortion TL, BL, BR, but Top Right looks okay. Lovely smooth exposure compared to my DSLR ! Michael

Okay, can't see the RA guide pulses, so can't tell if it's the mount moving first and then PHD2 correcting, or vice versa. 12 minutes is 1.5 x 8 min worm period, can't picture how that would happen. Post a 12 minute Guide Assistant run, which will show the unguided RA behaviour. Michael

Clever use of the dumbell weights. Michael

I think the problem is most obvious on the second image, all stars elongated in the direction TL to BR. But you have shown stacked images, we should really be looking at a single sub, stretched if necessary, to eliminate any stacking effects. And ideally a 10 to 30 sec sub, to eliminate guiding and tracking errors. Michael

Gaffer tape Michael

Found this online: "Stellarium has this feature: Under the Oculars Plug-in, under the Sensors tab in Stellarium, you can specify the parameters for an off-axis guider. See https://photographingspace.com/stellarium-fov/ ." I don't see how the planetarium impacts on scope balance...? Michael

Hi Sathya You need to set up a planetarium with Field of View frames like this: Then you can plan how you frame your target so that some guide stars are in the guidecam FOV. This shows two positions for the prism, the one on the long side of the main camera could be moved in to touch the edge of frame. Michael

My Canon Master Flat is saved as a TIF and happily reloads along with the Raw Picture files, showing as a TIF in the list. But that's in 4.2.4, ver 3.3.4 may be different. Michael

Like I already said ? Michael

The spacing is puzzling. Here's two quotes for identical looking 120 Field Correctors: "The working distance from the M 48 thread is 55 mm - ideal for photography with DSLR cameras with T adapter." "The spacing for dedicated CCD imaging cameras is 75mm from mating surface." Michael

Well, the thread is titled "PHD2 graph - Comments please", so: A great result, round stars and sub 1 arcsec guiding. Those two red messages on the bottom line of the window ? "SAT" and "Dark". Without a Dark or Bad Pixel Map you run the risk of guiding on a hot pixel. That would show SAT and have a perfect star profile like yours, but I don't think you were guiding on a pixel 🙂 Changing the y axis scale y:+/-8" to +/-4" and ticking the "Corrections" box would let us see what's really going on, instead of red and blue lines glued to the X axis. Michael

If I lined up Sheliak and Sulafat in my finder, there was M57 in the middle ! First DSO I ever managed to find and image. Michael

Version 3.3.4 ? DSS has moved on a bit since then Try DSS ver 4.2.3 Supports D5000 My Canon .CR2 Raws have always been described as "Gray" in DSS ? Michael

The early Canon EOS SLR's couldn't be fully controlled via the USB, the 450D / XSi was the first to do so. You will have to construct a USB to Serial connection to the camera's Remote Shutter socket, and use DSLR Shutter to control: http://www.stark-labs.com/page26/DSLR_Shutter.html Or you will have to control the shutter Bulb mode with an Intervalometer plugged into the remote shutter socket. Michael

Stage 1 of the Space X Starliner shurely ? Michael