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PHD Guiding

Roy@Aldermaston

By Roy@Aldermaston
in Discussions - Software

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Peter_A

Peter_A

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Am I right in thinking that the gamma setting only affects the screen view and doesn't change the star brightness that PHD is working with?

There's another problem I occasionally encounter when I am trying different settings, the screen suddenly goes completely white and the only way I have found to get back to normal is to shut down PHD and start again.

I don't think that the "low in the sky" issue is affecting me either, the longest I have gone without saturation is 10 minutes, all my testing has been with stars high in the sky.

Thanks for all your input, it's much appreciated.

Roy, there's got to be a simple solution to this problem if other people are not experiencing it.

Pete.

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RikM

RikM

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Don't know if this is a help but these are the settings I use.

post-5915-0-17158800-1346059168_thumb.jp

I have the calibration step set to 2000ms because I use a short focal length finder guider. With an ST80 it should be set closer to 1000ms I think. Other than that, I haven't really messed with anything.

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Roy@Aldermaston

Roy@Aldermaston

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I agree Pete, but I'm running out of ideas. Yes gamma only affects the screen brightness, but I find that if the the exposure is turned down much below 2.0 secs I can't get the screen dark enough with the gamma slider. I have tried a fresh install of PHD, but the new installation picks up the brain settings from them uninstalled version, so I imagine there are configuration files hidden somewhere that need to be deleted - if only I could find them.

How are you guiding - ST4 or ASCOM via the hand controller? I have tried both, but the star saturation issue persists.

Thanks RikM, aside from the calibration step, which I have set to 1700, your settings are very similar to those that I'm currently using.

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George

George

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Anything below 2 second exposures could lead you to chasing the seeing especially in the UK, I generally guide between 2.5 & 4 seconds, also if you have very good polar alignment try turning off DEC guiding.

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LongJohn54

LongJohn54

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How long is the USB lead, Pete?

Is it clipped in place or dangling off the camera? Unpowered extensions can give you all sorts of random problems as can leads with poor connectors. Even long leads with signal boosters can be unreliable.

John

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Peter_A

Peter_A

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Roy,

I have modified my EQ5 hand controller to add an ST4 port so now I have a cable linking the camera to the hand controller and then there's just the one USB cable to my laptop.

Looking at my PHD logs it seems that typically an isolated 1 will appear in the error column, I don't know if just a single occurrence of a 1 is enough to trigger the star saturated message. If the star image really was saturated then surely the log would record a whole series of errors. I am thinking that the star isn't saturated and it's erroneous data or some kind of noise creeping in somehow.

Pete.

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Peter_A

Peter_A

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John,

USB lead is 5m and I have made efforts to avoid long unsupported lengths but this lead is definitely on my list of things to check. I got this extension lead in Maplin, it is called an "Active USB 2.0 Extension Lead" it even says that multiple extension leads can be connected up to 25m. I'll try using a different lead next time, just one going straight from the camera to the laptop hopefully.

Pete.

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George

George

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Might be worth re-flashing the cameras firmware see here

Mines acted strange a few times in the past and a re-flash has cured any problems. The early QHY5's can be susceptible to voltage variations via the USB cable and this can corrupt the cameras firmware, the newer QHY5's EPROM is locked so does not suffer the same problems..

Also this article by Craig Stark is worth a read

Also just found this , seems their could be a bug in PHD 1.13.x

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Peter_A

Peter_A

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George,

Very many thanks for those suggestions, I hadn't thought of the camera firmware but maybe I have the newer camera version as I only bought it new in June. I have already downloaded the latest pre release version of PHD and was going to see if I could find some older versions as well to try. Your final link looks particularly relevant and gives me hope that this problem will be sorted out soon.

Pete.

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George

George

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Many thanks for thelink George, it sounds as though we may be making progress at last. Clear skies are forecast for tonight, so I thought that I might try version 1.12.4 - assuming that it will run on a Win 7, 64 bit operating system.

Roy

PHD is Windows 7 friendly AFAIK

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Roy@Aldermaston

Roy@Aldermaston

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I hope that I'm not being premature, but PHD version 1.12.4 ran without problems last night and appears to be stable running on Win 7, 64 bit. The conditions were very poor, with gusty wind, thin cloud and a bright moon so the guide star was frequently lost. The longest continuous guiding session was about an hour with several interruptions when the guide star was lost and regained. However, much to my relief there was no repetition of the star saturation message which has plagued me for months and is almost certainly caused by a bug in the 1.13.x versions, but possibly only when running on Win 7, 64 bit . Thanks to George for flagging up the Yahoo link I should be able to guide with one less problem.

Roy

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Roy@Aldermaston

Roy@Aldermaston

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There's obviously a bug in the more recent versions. The consensus on the Yahoo site (George's link) suggests that it doesn't affect the guiding and is just an erroneous message. That's not my experience, the guiding graph becomes erratic when the star saturation message appears and the subsequent images begin to show misshapen stars. Out of interest Martin, what operating system are you running?

Roy

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martin_h

martin_h

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There's obviously a bug in the more recent versions. The consensus on the Yahoo site (George's link) suggests that it doesn't affect the guiding and is just an erroneous message. That's not my experience, the guiding graph becomes erratic when the star saturation message appears and the subsequent images begin to show misshapen stars. Out of interest Martin, what operating system are you running?

Roy

Vista Home premimum. I didnt get the chance to investigate further because clouds ended the session, but that was the first time ever I had seen that message.

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George

George

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There's obviously a bug in the more recent versions. The consensus on the Yahoo site (George's link) suggests that it doesn't affect the guiding and is just an erroneous message. That's not my experience, the guiding graph becomes erratic when the star saturation message appears and the subsequent images begin to show misshapen stars. Out of interest Martin, what operating system are you running?

Roy

Strange thing is I am running the latest version of PHD and did 2.5 hours on the Pelican nebula 10 minute subs and didn't have any problems.

My setup :

ST80 guide scope with QHY5

Windows XP SP3

Running software:

Latest ASCOM

Latest EQmod

Latest Maxim

Latest PHD

The Sky6

If your still having problems I'd post your problem in the Yahoo group with details of the software your using so Craig could narrow down the problem.

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martin_h

martin_h

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Strange thing is I am running the latest version of PHD and did 2.5 hours on the Pelican nebula 10 minute subs and didn't have any problems.

My setup :

ST80 guide scope with QHY5

Windows XP SP3

Running software:

Latest ASCOM

Latest EQmod

Latest Maxim

Latest PHD

The Sky6

If your still having problems I'd post your problem in the Yahoo group with details of the software your using so Craig could narrow down the problem.

I was using 1.13.0b and had no problems, it was only when I loaded a new beta version that it went belly up.....back on the 1.13.0b version now

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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Few more thoughts on PHD garnerd from other forums.

Definately worth using the option to take dark frame

Some problems with Loadstar guiders not having enough contrast between guidestar and sky background even though it looks OK on screen

Some people have had more success using red filter on guide camera and longer exposures.

Dave

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Roy@Aldermaston

Roy@Aldermaston

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Just a brief update to the star saturation error message in PHD: I installed version 1.13.0b and ran a short session last night, which lasted about half an hour (5 min exposures). In line with Martin's experience using the same version the software worked flawlessly on an auto-selected guide star at an exposure of 2.5 secs. I am hoping that rolling back to the earlier software version has done the trick.

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RogerTheDodger

RogerTheDodger

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Roy, last couple of times I was out I had the same problem with star saturation using PHD version 1.13.2 that Craig made for me. I've re-installed 1.13.0b now but not had time to test it but your test makes me hopeful.

Out of interest, do you use an ir filter on your QHY5?

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Roy@Aldermaston

Roy@Aldermaston

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Hello Roger,

I hope that the earlier version does solve the problem. I haven't tested it over a long imaging session because the weather has been so bad, but using versions 1.13.1 and 1.13.5 the star saturation message appeared within a few minutes, so I'm hopeful that for me at least the problem has been solved.

No filter on the QHY5

Good luck,

Roy

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