MetaGuide

[malc-c]

For some reason I've not been getting the performance I used to get when using PHD, so the other night I downloaded MetaGuide software and installed this on the observatory PC. First issue was that the QHY5 is not natively supported, but with some searching it seems there is a WDM driver for this camera so that too was downloaded and installed.

Last night was sufficiently clear to do some testing, so the scope was slewed to Arcturus and the software configured for the ST80 guide scope. It took some tweaking of the setting to get the star exposure right, and I clicked on the full calibration option and waited... and waited..... waited... eventually the calibration progress bar reached 100% but then came up with some message that it didn't reach the designated 1.0 of something or another and that was that.

can anyone offer any pointers on setting this software up with an ST80 and QHY5 ?

[russellhq]

Can't help, but a link to where you got the WDM driver would be quite helpful

[malc-c]

Can't help, but a link to where you got the WDM driver would be quite helpful

http://qhyccd.com/en/top/download/

If you expand the QHY5 option the 1.3 vers of the WDM driver can be downloaded. Should work with Sharpcap as well

[michaelmorris]

This sounds similar to when you haven't told PHD to use large enough steps in the calibration process. I don't know if Metaguide provides adjustment of this factor.

[Ant]

Sorry Malc, never managed to get the QHY5 to work at all well - gave up in the end and bought a lodestar.

More money, but at least the damn thing worked...

I agree with Michael the ST80 is very short FL, try increasing the guide pulse step time - can't remember what the setting was called in PHD (it has been that long).

Cheers

ant

[Psychobilly]

I have only used Metaguide for collimating my SCT.. but used to let it guide the scope during that process so that the star was automatically re-centered using the camera (In my case DMK21AU04AS) and a GPUSB adaptor... at 60fps it used to work a treat...

That was about 3-4 years ago...

Peter...

[malc-c]

Thanks for the comments guys,

I'll try different settings and see if it will perform better.

[russellhq]

I tried it last night with the same set-up ST80 & QHY5 and it seemed to work well.

The only things I changed from default (from memory) were:

Camera resolution to 1280 x 1024

Camera Gain & Exposure settings to get the stars to show

NFrames- I changed this to 7 to get rid of a message MetaGuide kept throwing up when I tried to start guiding.

I ran the full calibration as well, and it didn't seem to take that long. Maybe 3 or 4 minutes max.

[malc-c]

I tried it last night with the same set-up ST80 & QHY5 and it seemed to work well.

The only things I changed from default (from memory) were:

Camera resolution to 1280 x 1024

Camera Gain & Exposure settings to get the stars to show

NFrames- I changed this to 7 to get rid of a message MetaGuide kept throwing up when I tried to start guiding.

I ran the full calibration as well, and it didn't seem to take that long. Maybe 3 or 4 minutes max.

I'll input the same into the software next time I get a chance. Can I ask what gain and exposure setting you set the QHY5 to... maybe this was my problem and the frame rate was too slow ?

[russellhq]

Here's a dump from the MG log file, might have some useful info in there:

# MetaGuide Version 5.1.0
# Comment = 468.5716
# UserName = UserName
# Location = UserLocation
# LocalDateTime = 2013 06 25 02:43:06
# UniversalDateTime = 2013 06 25 01:43:06
# JulianDate = 2456468.571597
# ScopeDescription = ScopeName
# SetupName = ScopeSetup.mg
# ASCOMConnected = 1
# ASCOMDriverName = EQMOD.Telescope
# ASCOMFullDriverName = I_EQMOD HEQ5/6
# GuideByASCOM = 1
# SideOfPier = 0
# LST = 19.659315
# Altitude = 64.209947
# Azimuth = 156.368257
# CameraName = QHY5(Native WDM)
# Aperture = 80.000000
# FNum = 5.000000
# Barlow/Reducer = 1.000000
# FocalLength = 400.000000
# CalibrationFactor = 1.114000
# CalFNum = 5.570000
# CalFocalLength = 445.599976
# PixelSize = 5.200000
# scale = 2.407040"/pix
# Width = 1280
# Height = 1024
# WidthArcMin = 51.350187
# HeightArcMin = 41.080149
# WidthMM = 6.656000
# HeightMM = 5.324800
# RA = 20.445379
# DEC = 31.407396
# Calibrated = 1
# WestAngle = -82.495003
# Parity = 1
# ReverseNS = 1
# ReverseEW = 0
# West vector = (0.130610,-0.991434)
# North vector = (-0.991434,-0.130610)
# RARate = 0.600000
# DecRate = 0.900000
# StartRAAggression = 0.700000
# StartDecAggression = 0.700000
# StartDecBacklashPlus = 100
# StartDecBacklashMinus = 100
# StartDecReverse = 0.200000
# NFrames = 7
# AccepFrac = 0.750000
# FrameRate = 8.000000
# Integration = 0
# Integrationx60 = 0
# EffectiveExposure = 0.875000
# StartGuidePeriod = 1.000000
# Guiding = 1
# GuideBy = ASCOM
# ShiftRate = 0.000000 0.000000
# DoShift = 0
# GuideXY = 587.500000 553.500000
# BlockN/S = 0 0
# XY values = pixels
# EastWest values = '...dec' terms are bigger and have 1/cos(dec) factor to represent axis angle not sky angle. Use them for PE analysis. Make sure dec. is correct.
# StartRecordingLocal = 2013 06 25 02:43:06
# StartRecordingUniversal = 2013 06 25 01:43:06

I don't remember the gain or exposure settings I used but I think the exposure was around 100ms and the gain was enough so the star profile didn't have a red centre.

[malc-c]

Cheers