Guide Camera (QHY5v) issue

[AstroAdam]

I'm after a bit of advice..

I tried guiding for the first time tonight with my QHY5v, connected to the HEQ5pro with an ST4 cable, guiding with a finder, and PhD.

Soooooooo.... not too successful. I thought I was going well. I was getting a good guide star vey easily, took PhD Darks, all seemed good. Then, it started to go a bit pear shaped. When I'd done everything in PhD (connected camera, connected mount, selected guide star), I pushed the big PhD button. The W calibration started, and got to 61, and gave m the 'Star has not moved enough' message. So I increased the calibration step to 3000ms (then 10000ms just for fun) - Still nothing. Basically, the star doesn't visibly move at all.

I've got the camera selected as ASCOM (late), and then choose the QHY5v in the second (ASCOM) box that appears. Then I choose 'on-camera' (I think that's what it's called), for the mount. I've got a straight-through 6-pin RJ12 to RJ12 lead for the QHY5v to mount ST4 guide port.

Basically, the mount doesn't seem to move during the first bit of calibration (W), so it fails. Ive tried the manual movement in PhD. The only one that seems to do anything is 'North', which gives me a slight change in the whirring from the mount (subtle), and causes the guide star to move slightly on the video output. South, East and West don't seem to do anything, either in the way of mount whirring, or actual star movement.

Any suggestions???

Is my ST4 cable correct (straight-through 6-pin RJ12 to RJ12) to go from a QHY5v to the HEQ5pro?

By the way - I'm aligning and using the goto etc of my Synscan handset, and then using the ST4 port via PhD and the QHY5v to guide.

[Daniel-K]

sounds like a hot pixel, have you focused the finder so you can see stars on the phd screen, may sound dumb but its easily done

[AstroAdam]

oh it's definitely a star One of many.

[Marc1980]

My thinking is if you can hear the mount move when you manually move it then your mount is getting information.

What figure is you calibration steps at. A lot of people suggest changing it from 750 to 1500.

Regards

Marc

Sent from my galaxy s3 using tapatalk 2

[Zakalwe]

Is my ST4 cable correct (straight-through 6-pin RJ12 to RJ12) to go from a QHY5v to the HEQ5pro?

I could be dreaming, but is there not supposed to be a cross-over in the cable?

[Richie092]

Am following this closely. Exactly the same happened to me. Worked fine one night, set up exactly the same then got identical problem the next night. W got to 61 then gave me that error message.

I spent my limited time viewing instead but the first thing I am going to try next time I set up is getting my polar alignment spot on for the next try. In theory it is the only thing that has changed since it worked perfectly and I was trying to guide up near Polaris.

[AstroAdam]

I could be dreaming, but is there not supposed to be a cross-over in the cable?

Well, possibly. This is what I need to know for sure, and what some pin out diagrams seem to show. However, another SGL member posted a photo in a thread somewhere of the two ends, and it looked like simple straight-through.

Confused!

[Zakalwe]

I've had guiding nights like this too. Works perfectly one night, the next night the camera keeps disconnecting, calibration fails, ASCOM drivers bomb out and so on. After a couple of hours frustration I ended up dragging it all back in. The next night everything works perfectly. I put it down to a "glitch in the Matrix".

[Richie092]

I knew I should have taken the red pill

[AstroAdam]

Well - Ive figured out what my problem is.

I ordered a straight-through cable, and got sent a reversed cable (i.e. pin 1 to pin6, pin 2 to pin 5 etc).

Didn't check it, as I assumed they'd sent me the right thing...! Simple as that. Have crimped a new end on it, and will give it another run tonight.

Fingers crossed it works this time!

[AstroAdam]

Update - And it worked!

Nice

So - straight through it is - just as I thought