GaryCH

That's good to know, thanks Dave. I have had a bit of joy guiding now - my first attempt was very erratic because I forgot to change the speed and it was all over the place but I was pleased to track a star in PhD none the less! My second attempt I adjusted to sidereal and the graph was much better but during my attempt at a ten minute exposure the scope ended up near a street light as Pleiades was so low in the sky and completely washed the image out! I think my main problem is my combination of a quickcam pro 4000 with the 800mm guide scope which gives me a very small fov - the pixel scale is 1.44 ish - and even when I was looking at Pleiades, I still struggled to find a star. When I tried to slew to other targets I couldn't find any stars again even though I could see them in my finder scope. I think this is a fov and sensitivity of the web cam problem, it just doesn't seem to be able to pick up anything other than very bright stars. I mount my guide scope on top of the imaging scope with a homemade bracket. I'm very happy with the solidity and lack of flexure but, I have no adjustment on it. My next project (now I know that it does work to a point) is to add some adjustment to the bracket so I can centre the guide scope properly and perhaps offset it to find a bright guide star that would otherwise not be in the fov. Thanks for all the advice on the matter, I'm up and running but, I still have work to do! I managed to track a random area of the sky for ten minutes yesterday with no trailing so I must be on the right track!! Gary.

I used the dark library in phd2, it took the darks and saved them when I first connected my webcam. Hopefully that works ok. I have no problem focussing on terrestrial object but I've only managed to test it to a range of approximately 1/2 mile (at least) and that left me with the majority of the focuser still to use but I will certainly confirm that when the moon next appears to see if that's enough try to get out at dusk, as you suggest. Many thanks Astro, Gary.

Thanks Ian, and btw thanks for your original post in this thread. I've read through it a few times and I'm quite certain that I'll be referring back to it to fine tune the settings once I'm up and running! I take all your points onboard, especially the last one referring to exposure times and drivers for the web cam as i think the guide scope should have had something in the image as I tested the alignment during the day and it looked pretty good. I'll look into it as it's still cloudy so I'm ready when the skies clear and let you know! Thanks again, Gary.

Thanks for your input, it certainly gives me another line of investigation. I might just have to bide my time and wait until I can afford a more suitable guide scope, or somehow convert my finder scope (I think is 50mm) to be able to take, and focus with, my webcam and/or buy a better guide cam. I'm completely new to guiding so even the basics still seem quite daunting to me! Gary.

I know it's a rather long FL compared to most guide scopes, I was hoping I would get away with it to save me spending any more money as I've just splashed out nearly a grand on my avx mount and sw ed80 apo and i'm desperate to get longer than 60 second exposures! I have both PhD and PhD2 but I was trying phd2 as it asked for the basic details of the guide scope and cam setup and automatically set some rough default values to suit. The pixel scale is about 1.44 ish and my imaging scope is about 1.9. Could the pixel scale be too small for guiding perhaps? I would've thought I'd be able to see a star (or planet) at least, regardless of whether it guided properly or not! Perhaps one day soon the clouds will kindly move on so I can have a proper crack at it! Gary.

Hi all Does anyone have a problem with an image in PhD that is so grainy that you can't see anything, let alone a star? I have tested the setup in the day time to ensure it all functions but at night I can't see anything, not even Jupiter! Granted, I haven't had much time to play with it as it's been cloudy for the last two weeks (that'll be my fault for buying a new mount and scope!) but I don't seem to have any joy playing with the gain and exposure etc. I use a Logitech quickcam pro 4000 and my guide scope is an 800mm ds2090 (it's my old scope and only choice atm!) has anyone had any experience with this web cam, or similar issues? Unfortunately I don't have a screen shot but it looks like the image you used to get on old TVs when they had no signal and if I adjust the exposure, or brightness it just goes completely black with no stars! Thanks in advance for any tips! Gary.

Hi John and Wife, welcome to SGL:)