scotty38

Thanks both. I'm using NINA and have it set to park the scope and warm the camera too.

Had a few hours on IC1848 and now I'm having a go at M13, due to finish about 2am so I'm going to bed and leaving it to do its thing. Will I get up and go and put the lens cap on at least? Surely most folk without an automated observatory must be doing the same and risking the elements?????

Awesome!

I was after an EQ6R but I ended up with an AZ-EQ6 Pro as it was the only one in stock and glad I did too. I "try" (ineptitude and no fault of the mount)to image with it but being able to use it in alt-az mode for visual is great...

I know Peter Zelinka and Trevor Jones (Astrobackyard) have cracking results with this type of mount and scopes like the RedCat. Might be worth looking at some of their videos as there are loads.

Any longish exposures are probably going to need guiding though but look at the videos as they do stuff before moving on to guiding

31 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

@scotty38 I've joined everyone of them they have all offered something new to me to learn about and enjoy. Come and see next week, and have a look at the StarGaZine section.

Yep I realise they will offer loads of information I was just checking on the "eligibility" to actually join. Seems like you confirmed that anyway so thanks....

I'm a beginner too and had never looked through a scope a couple of months ago but dived in head first and bought an imaging setup based around a WO GT81. I had a couple of beginners luck nights and managed an image or two (my M42 is on here somewhere) but since then have had nothing but issues on the few clear nights I've had....

It's massively fascinating and frustrating at the same time and there seems nothing worse than the catch-22 of spending clear nights setting up kit rather than taking pictures. I am glad I made it as easy as possible with a short refractor as there's enough to learn or go wrong as it is 👍

I had a play between clouds and got PHD2 calibrated and once done guiding was immediate although clouds messed things up so it never ran long enough to see how well it was working.

Thanks again for all the help as I'd not realised there was a separate calibration to be done. Fingers crossed this is all that was needed....

Can anyone join these calls by the way? I had wanted to ask earlier but decided to use the breaks between clouds to sort a few issues.

Thanks Michael, I will do all of that as suggested, extremely useful, thanks again!...

Thanks for looking and here you go. Same as before you should probably ignore the latter half somewhat where I started messing with focus.

PHD2_GuideLog_2021-03-20_195954.txt

Another thing I just found by playing around and although I accept this will have no bearing on the dark library/driver issue but when balancing and just turning on the RA axis the counterweight makes no real difference throught most of its travel. Right at the end and it's heavier than the scope side and vice-versa with weight right up to the mount but for most of the travel maybe a third either side of centre not much difference. Does this mean my RA bearing may be too tight and could be a cause of the guding issues?

It's a new mount by the way, less than a few month's old.

Thanks Billy will have a look but what I forgot to say was I changed the driver PHD2 was using. I selected "ASCOM Camera (1)" which brings up a ZWO config screen and that was the one failing. When I choose "ZWO ASI" as my camera the only option I get is to pick between my 120 or 294 but that has worked and has built a dark library. This is the driver I was using previously.....

I just tried setting up a new profile and it keeps failing taking the dark library frames at the same place, on the first frame at 4.5 seconds and the camera seems to be disconnected. Swapped out the cable and same issue. It's conencted via the USB hub on my 294mc camera so just going to try direct from the laptop.

13:20:40.602 00.000 2384 Capture dark frame 5/5 exp=4000
13:20:44.842 04.240 2384 dark frame stats: bpp 16 min 1296 max 12640 filtmin 2160 filtmax 2584
13:20:44.852 00.010 2384 mean = 2326  median(approx) = 2304
13:20:44.852 00.000 2384 histo[0..63] 0 0 0 0 0 12 157 2571 424907 781735 17932 1402 67 9 2 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13:20:44.852 00.000 2384 histo[64..127] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13:20:44.852 00.000 2384 histo[128..191] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13:20:44.852 00.000 2384 histo[192..255] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13:20:44.862 00.010 2384 Capture dark frame 1/5 exp=4500
13:21:04.382 19.520 2384 Alert: After 16.0 sec the camera has not completed a 1.0 sec exposure, so it has been disconnected to prevent other problems. If you think the hardware is working correctly, you can increase the timeout period on the Camera tab of the Advanced Settings Dialog.
PHD will make several attempts to re-connect the camera.
13:21:04.602 00.220 2384 Try camera reconnect, now = 1616332864
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 gear_dialog: ReconnectCamera
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 gear_dialog: DoConnectCamera [ASI Camera (1) (ASCOM)]
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 Status Line: Connecting to Camera ...
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 GetString("/profile/3/cam_hash/8b703f25/whichCamera", "") returns ""
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 Connecting to camera [ASI Camera (1) (ASCOM)] id = []
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 Create ASCOM Camera: choice 'ASI Camera (1) (ASCOM)' progid ASCOM.ASICamera2.Camera
13:21:05.422 00.820 2384 setting camera Name = ZWO ASI120MM Mini (ASCOM)
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 ASCOM camera: MaxBinning is 2
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 ASCOM camera: has cooler
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 ASCOM Camera: set binning = 1
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 GetDouble("/profile/3/camera/pixelsize", 0.000000) returns 3.750000
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 DoConnectCamera: reconnecting=1 warningIssued=0 lastCam=[ASI Camera (1) (ASCOM)] scaleRatio=1.000
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 Connected Camera: ZWO ASI120MM Mini (ASCOM)

Hi at first I was looking at the California Nebula then I tried M51 so pointing the other wayish. I've attached the PHD2 debug log too, there's a lot in there but you can probably ignore the latter half as I was messing at that stage with focus on the guide scope to see if that was the issue.

PHD2_DebugLog_2021-03-20_195954.txt

Thanks will get that done...

1 minute ago, tomato said:

If you have PHD open during the calibration, it will give you information about the process in the bottom left hand corner. It should take about 10-30 steps and you can see the star being brought back to the centre when it moves in the opposite direction. 
Given the problem you had I would definitely recommend you do a calibration at the start of the session, if it successfully calibrates that rules out any initial set up problems.

Yes I see all that and I'll do a full calibration next chance I get. Thanks

2 minutes ago, michael8554 said:

Hi Scotty

The difference between when PHD2 is Calibrating and when it's Guiding is pretty obvious.

Sounds like you need to read and apply some of the PHD2 Help Guides you can find via the Help menu.

Michael

Yep agreed!

36 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

Are you sure it started a calibration? PHD has the option to reuse previous calibrations as it saves time if you haven't moved your guide scope or camera. Dont assume NINA will take care of everything for you. All it does is send a command to PHD to start guiding. Do you strip down all your gear after a session and put it back together again for the next? If so, you will need to do a fresh calibration each time. It's also recommended you slew to near the celestial equator to perform the calibration as it gives better results.

There should be a folder in Documents titled PHD2 and it automatically stores guide logs in there. You can review the latest ones with the PHD log viewer.

https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-log-viewer/

No I'm not sure to be fair. I take the scope, guide scope and cameras etc off the mount as one each time but they all stay connected relative to each other and all I do when it's remounted and after a PA is have NINA tell PHD to start guiding. Sounds like I've missed/missing some initial calibration at least....

3 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

OK. The full calibration normally take a couple of minutes. Definitely worth doing it next time you set up. 

When you shift click the green guide icon you should get a dialogue box asking you if you're sure you want to redo the calibration

ok thanks, in that case it wasn't done as I saw no dialogue box. It all seems to be pointing towards doing that although I don't recall doing it previously and it has worked before so maybe just lucky that time....

27 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

I didnt know it did the calibration first, how did you get it to do that? 

If nothing has changed with the setup hardware since the last calibration then a new calibration shouldn't be needed for each session, just a guiding assistant run. I think if you rotate your guide cam in the guide scope you would need a new calibration.  You didn't have any windows updates or any other software changes that might have affected phd2 at all before that session? 

Sorry, I didn't answer your other questions. I have added an EAF which updated an ASCOM driver but nothing else has changed. I set up the focuser the other evening but after that was done the clouds rolled in so maybe that's affected something....

1 minute ago, michael8554 said:

Hi Scotty

Sounds like it was using a previous Cal, and something was different from your last Cal, so carry out a new one.

If you hover the pointer over any of the PHD2 buttons, you get some Help text.

In the case of the "Guide" button, it says something like "Shift-Click to start a new Calibration"

In case there's a different problem, post your PHD2 GuideLog (they're in the PHD2 Folder)

Michael

Thanks and I'll try this and see what happens. I did try the shift-click thing and being honest didn't see it do much different at all, unless it was doing it anyway, if that makes sense. I'll grab the logs of my other machine and see what they say.

22 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

I didnt know it did the calibration first, how did you get it to do that? 

If nothing has changed with the setup hardware since the last calibration then a new calibration shouldn't be needed for each session, just a guiding assistant run. I think if you rotate your guide cam in the guide scope you would need a new calibration.  You didn't have any windows updates or any other software changes that might have affected phd2 at all before that session? 

To be honest nothing... I just see the word "calibrating", "looping" etc at the bottom of the screen in NINA or PHD. It may well not be the same thing as an initial or full calibration though....

Yes I checked the clutches and all seemed fine...

2 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

Were you clutches tight? I've had this behaviour in PHD2 recently and the clutches weren't quite done up after I'd done the PA. 

Also I'd reiterate the advice above and redo a calibration (and guiding assistant for good measure) 

 

 

 

Yep thanks, I'd checked that and seemed fine.