Newforestgimp

47 minutes ago, Astroscot2 said:

Andy  why not look at using an OAG?

It has crossed my mind but not sure what’s involved in setup and the relative pros n cons ?

Hi,

I’m about to take delivery of a TS-Optics RC8 and I’m looking for advice on a suitable guidescope.

currently using WO 50mm x 200mm Uniguide with ASI120MM , hoping to move it across but if it’s not a good match what should I look for instead ?

regards

Andy

8 hours ago, wimvb said:

The mechanical construction of altitude and azimuth adjustments on most mounts don't allow for better than a few arc minutes in polar misalignment. Whenever I try to really zero in on PA, I notice that I adjust it to different positions without really improving. Two bolts pushing against a metal block are just not that accurate.

In my experience (with a sw AZ-EQ6 mount), belt tension and backlash adjustments are more important for smooth guiding than accurate polar alignment.

Btw, those low numbers for guide rate and aggression make sense for a smooth running mount. A "rougher" mount needs more force to get it moving. And a smooth mount will keep on moving (overshoots) if it gets too much force.

Hi & thanks.

yes I’m no longer concerned it’s something be worried about on the mount, it was a shock to see a wildly bouncing graph out of the box. The only thing that seems to be apparent on the graph now is periodic error which I’ve read can’t be corrected while using AAP guiding. All part of the getting to know your mount process I guess.

When our new puppy 🐶 no longer has a craving for electrical cables I may well revert back to a fully cabled laptop set up with PHD2 & APT. But for now wireless is what I need 🙂

2 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi.

No.

Good, 5’ I can do, 5” would take all night !

is this relating to the theory that being slightly out on PA actually has a benefit when guiding ?

1 hour ago, alacant said:

Hi

-  Look at the numbers if and only if the images from your main camera are not to your satisfaction.

- Adjust polar alignment to around 5' error.

Cheers

Hi,

Regarding your suggestion for PA accuracy, you've said 5minutes was this intentional or did you mean 5 seconds ?

1 hour ago, JonCarleton said:

I am having a similar problem with a GEM28EC using PHD2.  I have the exact same result using Linux/INDI or Windows/ASCOM.  Per manufacturer recommendations, my drivers turn off the PEC chip.

The result is marginally acceptable guiding with occasional spikes and non-specific intervals.  Best guiding is TOTAL RMS error of 1.29" with typical "stable" guiding of 1.5" over long periods separated by random spikes up to 6.0"  The spikes occur 1-3 in a batch after which the mount settles down again.  All the testing has been done in areas where a meridian flip wasn't going to happen any time soon.  Polar alignment was spot on with iPolar (although PHD2 Guiding Assistant reports it as very slightly off).

Reducing the AGR and MinMov helps most.  I'm currently using 75 RA/50 DEC and about half what Guiding Assistant recommended for MinMov.  Guiding Assistant isn't much real help in this instance.  I sent PHD2 logs to iOptron at their request, but haven't heard back yet.

That’s really interesting, I too am getting the high PEC around 6” and when that passes it settles to around 0.8 RMS before again hitting what i assume is the PE.

experimenting last night I was running on

Guide rate 0.25x

AGGR RA 20%
AGGR DEC 20%

(I have no option for min move on the AAP version of phd, only AGGR and guide rate.)

Certainly not the usual advice of “just use the std settings”.

this seemed to give a nice neat graph hunting the 0 line all bar the assumed PE peaks and dithers.

Would be interested to hear what iOptron have to say.

1 hour ago, Richie092 said:

I have a StellarMate setup with A Frac and an ASIAIR setup with a Samyang 135 and used both on my trusty old NEQ6. Both showed between 0.6 and 1 RMS all night so my experience leads me to trust the Air figures. I now use the Air setup on my new Gem45 and it’s between .45 and .65 all night. Next time I set up I will jot down my settings   I admit that neither setup weighs more than 5kg so not really pushing either mount. 

That would be magic !!

much the same here I have a very light set up currently which could also contribute to the minimal guide nudges required.

37 minutes ago, wimvb said:

I think that this statement is significant. The mount is considerably different from your previous SW mount and probably runs a lot smoother. It would therefore need less aggression in the guiding pulses. And your description of large + and - deviations sugessts the same.

What I would do is to hook up the mount to PHD on a laptop, create a new profile, and run the guiding assistant. Then use its recommended values as a baseline for AAP guiding.

Thinking the same, I was getting fantastic guiding from the SW EQM-35 and expected better out of the box from the GEM45, with the responses here and further research it’s almost behaving as if the mount needs minimal corrections. It just seemed alien to drop the AGGR values down below 50%

now I understand the logic a bit more I will start with very minimum values and build up rather than starting with standard and everything bouncing around.

my hesitancy in using the guide assistant is it will no doubt suggest making changes to settings that aren’t available on the AAP version of phd.

1 hour ago, Ouroboros said:

It’s the right thing to do if you get round stars. Proof of the pudding and all that.  

Forgive a silly question, but have you checked you input the correct guide scope focal length and guide camera pixel size?  The wrong values could display the wrong guiding error. 

Tbh I can’t remember entering a pixel size, I selected my guide camera ASI120MM and the f/l as 200mm as taken from the William optics site for the WO 50mm uniguide slide base.

1 hour ago, GoldTop57 said:

Might be worth reducing reducing the guide rate. Also what settings do you have for Max DEC and RA duration? I found this article useful when I was setting up my mount:

https://eastwindastro.blogspot.com/2021/02/how-to-adjust-asiair-guide-aggression.html?m=0

Funnily enough I just found that article and it seems I was inadvertently doing what the article suggests, so I will make a more conscious approach next session with this article as a guide.

currently at the standard 0.5x and 2000ms max 

I’m beginning to think that the mount is actually working VERY well with limited guide corrections required whereas at the beginning I thought the mount was a dud !!

I appreciate I could use Phd2 from the laptop and I may well return to that method and the suggestions the guide assistant would provide aren’t present in AAP, but the AAP works so well for everything else I don’t want to give up on it, and would rather persevere with it.

As I say if I back the AGGR way off the graph looks much more reasonable but I’m not experienced enough to manually diagnose autoguiding to know if this is the right thing to do or if I should be looking at the guide rate, exp time or some other setting in AAP guiding.

21 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

How well are you balanced?

Did you run the guide assistant and apply the settings?

Your RA and DEC should go either side of the trend line otherwise it's showing your PA is out 

Very well balanced, Ioptron doesn’t have any friction at all when axis are unlocked so balancing is not guess work, there is no guide assistant in aap guiding.

PA was within 1min, not the best but not bad.

Morning All

Im pulling my hair out (what’s left of it) with auto guiding an Ioptron GEM45 with ASIAIR Pro.

when I leave the very limited settings available as std on the AAP guiding,

0.5x guide rate, 2000ms, AGGR RA 70%, AGGR DEC 100%

performance is shocking !!! BIG sharp spikes above and below the 0 line for both axis. Anyone else had this issue and overcome ?

The only way I could get reasonable guiding was to back the aggr WAY off in both axis !! This seems at odds with my other mount I was using that was a tuned eqm-35 pro that was impeccable on the std settings at around 0.5arcs RMS.

Suggestions pleeeaase…

30 minutes ago, GalaxyGael said:

Have you checked the baud rate value on the ASI if you get a problem connecting to the mount? that was common for some mounts, the default values of 9600 did not work in some cases.

I think I only tried the 115600 (something like that)

next time I set up I’ll try the others

25 minutes ago, malc-c said:

This was discussed a few months back.  I got slated for using a standard 7808 8v regulator as I hadn't included the smoothing caps in the setup !  

My scope is in its observatory, with a small power box attached to the pier.  In this box I have the 12v coming in, passing through to a connector which then has a cable that powers the mount.  The feed in is split and taken to a 7808 8v regulator with a couple of electrolytic capacitors to give a stable 8v DC out to a second connector.  A lead then goes off to a dummy battery that I made by taking out the two rechargeable cells.  This powers my Canon 400D without any issues.

There are loads of commercial options to power cameras form the mains... just google   - Here's an example

Thank you, I can’t say I understand the reply as I’m a bit of an electrickery phobic, but I do own two couplers like the one you linked, but a looking forward one that I can run from the mounts distributed 12v supply, hence why I need a 5.5x2.1 input plug > voltage step down > dummy battery.

32 minutes ago, GalaxyGael said:

I find the ioptron quite good, especially since the guidecam USB port is on the saddle, as it the 12 V 3A for the camera etc. Have no need yet for any powerbox. the icommander mount control inbuilt saves having to setup EQmod etc., all integrated which is just a little easier.

Yes sadly I’ve fallen foul of one of its foibles, it doesn’t like talking to Asiair so I have to go via usb hub from Air to Mount very frustrating but hopeful that situation will change 👍

57 minutes ago, GalaxyGael said:

I mean the duration of the guidecam images. normally for single star guiding I use 2s or 3 s to avoid effects due to seeing, but multistar guiding needs shorter image times because of the averaging.

Ah right, I guessed that’s what it might be, I’ve just made the switch from skywatcher to Ioptron so it’s a bit of a learning curve.

thanks for the suggestions.

4 minutes ago, GalaxyGael said:

GEM45G (without iguider). I don't use ASIair, sorry. For all 3 scopes guiding at 0.47-0.63"/px, my aggr setting are about 75 in RA and 90 in Dec (as far as I remember). But I use multistar guiding with 1-1.5 s integration so as to have lots of star HFR averaging. On some night, the aggrr can be reduced if a see lots of corrections up and down.

Thank you so much 🙏🏼 , when you say 1-1.5s integration ? I’m not familiar with that term ?

4 minutes ago, GalaxyGael said:

My evolution of some scopes working hard at night.

TS 86SDQ, Intes MN56 (a favourite), and TS Hypergraph 6.

Nice !, Is that a GEM45 with Asiair  ?

If it is any advice on guide settings ?

if it isn’t, what aggressiveness settings in your guiding S/ware ? 

regards

Andy

Hi All,

im searching for, without much success, a 12v 5.5x2.1 male input to canon DSLR dummy battery ?

I already have a mains supply coupler and a USB coupler but ideally I’d like one with standard dc plug input with the necessary step down to 7v for DSLR.

Anyone found something that provides a really neat solution to powering their DSLR ?

regards

Andy

5 hours ago, nephilim said:

@Newforestgimp I'd love to give NINA a shot but it seems a very steep learning curve, especially as i'm very new to all this. I also use the ASIair & its perfect. I can be up & running within 10mins of setting my gear up & it just does what its supposed to do with no issues at all (i've obviously cursed it now 😒)

Steve

Nina is actually quite straightforward to use with a few caveats that you know all your focal lengths, pixel counts etc etc. As I say I really liked NINA it really was just the guiding integration wasnt great when I used NINA, and as you say I would revert to APT and be up and running in 10 mins no dramas.

41 minutes ago, inFINNity Deck said:

Until last week I used a paid licence of SGP. For quite some time (years in one case) I have been waiting for improvements in dome-control within SGP, but they never arrived. Then a few weeks ago I found it impossible to move the dome correctly for a new scope on my rig. I was then advised to try NINA and never touched SGP again. When I first tried NINA the dome-control was still not doing what I wished, but that was solved within a week after some extensive correspondence with the programmers, and it is now working like a charm! Yep, that is correct: SOLVED WITHIN A WEEK!

Indeed, the advanced sequencer is a steep learning curve, but the nice thing is that a basic sequencer can be converted to an advanced one by a single mouse-click, which helps tremendously in understanding the advanced sequencer. Once you understand it, the advanced sequencer is very cool!

So my advise is: If you want real service and progress, go NINA! 🙂

Nicolàs

Yes, have to agree Nina support is really good 👍 

1 hour ago, simmo39 said:

Think I will be heading back to APT, I will give NINA a try but APT is like an old friend, not perfect but always there. ( well nearly always there ).

I really like APT, paid up user and all…. I planned to still use it at home base but I’ve  had a taste of wireless and I LIKE IT !!

If I was more of a software installation guru id definitely go the mini pc/RPi  route and use RDP from tablet or smartphone and use any application. Maybe I will one day but for now Asiair will do me for now.

I had a love/hate relationship with NINA, I really wanted to use it as the features and set up were perfect.

what I hated was the guiding integration on auto run, now I’m 100% sure it was operator error (it always is) but most of the suggestions I got to get around the issue were about starting guiding outside of Nina and then starting the auto run/plan. That indeed worked but that takes the “auto” out of auto run, after losing way too many precious clear night hours experimenting & not imaging I threw in the towel and went back to the safety of APT.

I’m sure my response will be responded to saying how you do this and do that, as I say I’m sure it’s 100% user error as I genuinely think NINA is a terrific application, just not for me. I’ve now simplified (because I’m simple) and gone the Asiair path so far with limited use it just WORKS, with limited time window before weather closed in Im up and running fully guided in minutes so far it does enough for me, Just my thoughts and experience.

clear skies 👍

Andy