1st night at guiding - Absolute disaster

[spacebloke]

I had my first attempt at guiding last night and to cut a long story short it was a complete disaster.

I've got a ST80 and a spc900 as my guiding setup. Once everthing was connected I started PHD and all I could se was what looked like tv static. I tried moving the focuser in and out and changing the gain slider.

I also tried playing with the setting in the setting in the cam dialog box.

To make sure the problem wasn't just PHD I tried connecting the camera to AMCAP and this was exactly the same, I just couldn't focus at all or get anything that resembled stars on the screen.

I know the spc900 can be used as a guide cam as people on here do just that. But this experienced has left me very down in the dumps, especially now the run of clear nights is over

Has anyone else had the same problem and could give me a few pointers?

Cheers, Stuart

[steppenwolf]

Stuart, the Moon will be up tonight early evening so why not aim at that and try again so that you will have a bright source that's easy to find and you will be able to get a good focus on it in readiness for your next attempt at guiding. Make up a simple cardboard ruler and mark off the extension of the focus tube when you have the Moon in focus and use this as a rough guide to focus in later sessions.

The webcam can be used for autoguiding, I've done it myself although that was long before PHD was around!

Good luck.

[Earl]

Are you using an tube extension as the camera will not be able to focus without one?

[spacebloke]

Hi Earl_uk,

I used a diagonal last night.

I'll try it with a barlow with the lens part taken off the next time I go out.

[lukebl]

If it helps, this picture shows how my SPC900 is connected to my ST80 guidescope when it's in focus. The lip of the webcam is 120mm from the focuser mounting as the picture shows. I use various extension tubes to get it to the correct distance.

Welcome to the dark side, though. I have been here for two years and I still have disastrous and wasted evenings due to issues with the guiding!

[Earl]

I'll try it with a barlow with the lens part taken off the next time I go out.

Thats the way to go

you will get a noisy screen until focus is correct as iirc PHD auto stretches

[RogerTheDodger]

I'm using the same setup (ST80 with diagonal and SPC900) albeit with an LX modded cam. The focus point is very narrow, and you do need the IR filter. Once I'd found the focus I marked the tube so I could find it quicker the next time. When finding the focus start with it all the way in and move out in tiny amounts, it does take time but you will get there.

[Freddie]

Another vote for the need of an extension tube. I used the barlow that came with the ST80 with the lens removed.

[spacebloke]

Thanks for the advice guys. Do I keep the setting the same as at startup? ie the fps, gamma etc?