PHD guiding - my first attempt - a tale to tell

[peroni]

Hey All

I tried out my QHY5L-II mono guide camera, PHD, and Astortortilla last night in less than ideal conditions. Here is my tale...

19:30 - lugged rig downstairs and outside to clear earthy patch of garden. Planned to be a patio this year. 

20:00 - kit set up, cables secured, polar alignment guessed. Waiting for sun to set.

20:15 - a quick test run of all the software starting up and connecting. APT, CdC, Astrotortilla, PHD, EQMOD. Looking good so far.

20:50 - watching the final sunset. starting to get colder now so getting a few layers on

21:10 - sun gone. still waiting for that polaris speck to show itself

21:50 - found it. reposition mount to get polaris in the polar scope

22:00 - fire up the software again. Polar align using EQMOD polar alignment routine. I love this, very easy to use.

============= If I had an obsy I could start here  =============

22:15 - slew to Vega and tried using Astrotortilla for first time. Forgot to focus the camera and spend 15 mins faffing 

22:30 - focussed and run Astrotortilla. My initial goto was out a few degrees so Astrotort fixed it, corrected and put me bang on Vega. I threw my home made bahtinov mask on and got focus fine tuned

22:45 - off to find chosen target for tonight. M101. A nice easy high in the sky target. Clouds have come in right on top of M101.

23:00 - spend the next hour waiting for clouds to clear. Time to play with PHD for the first time. My guide scope was out of focus. I'd focussed in daylight but it needed tweeking.

23:15 - focussed my first stars for guiding. selected a suitable star and hit the PHD button. calibration started and finished even though the clouds were out and SNR was flashing red. Carried on watching the guiding for a bit. Nothing else to do as clouds were out. 

Below is my first guide chart... there were a couple of small spikes occassionally but not on this screenie.

23:30 - Laptop getting covered in dew. Fashioned a quick cover to protect it.

00:00 - went back to Vega as that bit of sky was always clear. had another go at PHD calibration. All ok but moon is out and cannot find a suitable target. Found the North American Nebula with Astrotortilla but no chance of imaging it tonight.

Dabble with exposures to see how the guiding was doing. Got 600 secs easy (10 mins) exposure. Nice round stars. Horrible light covered sky. 

01:00 - sky was clearing over M101 so went back for another go. Had a PHD calibration failure this time but tweeked the settings and got it to pass.

01:15 - ran a 480 secs (8 mins) exposure no problems. Moon still out. Very light. Was a bit disappointed by target but it is a faint one. Need dark sky.

01:30 - final image of the night. a 900 secs (15 mins) exposure just for the hell of it. wondered how good this guiding can be. I wasn't disappointed. Nice round stars again.  Hideously washed out but nice round stars. I like round stars     

Stars are eggy at the edges as I don't have an FF/FR yet. Going to order one now.

======================== If I had an obsy I could finish here but the wife wants a patio. hey ho.   ==========================

01:45 - pack stuff up and go in for night

02:00 - bed

Overall I think the night was a success. New software learned, new hardware working. New workflow doc created to ease the pain everytime I set up.

I'll try to process the M101 image but not holding my breath.

Hope you enjoyed my guiding tale.

[glowingturnip]

sounds like a success to me, getting guiding working was easily the most frustrating and difficult part of the whole thing for me, only now can I seem to get it right most times without too much swearing and time-wasting.

Upgrade to PHD2 btw, it's much better than the first one (which is also good) - http://openphdguiding.org/

[red dwalf]

great write up and a lovely PHD graph, been guiding myself now for a few months and never had a graph like that,

have you thought of a light pollution filter for the camera ? even a cheapish one should help.

[Ant]

I agree, that's a lovely looking graph

Wish mine looked like that !!!

[peroni]

sounds like a success to me, getting guiding working was easily the most frustrating and difficult part of the whole thing for me, only now can I seem to get it right most times without too much swearing and time-wasting.

Upgrade to PHD2 btw, it's much better than the first one (which is also good) - http://openphdguiding.org/

Thanks, I'll give PHD2 a go next time

great write up and a lovely PHD graph, been guiding myself now for a few months and never had a graph like that,

have you thought of a light pollution filter for the camera ? even a cheapish one should help.

I live in a reasonably dark area where LP is not too bad. Granted a filter will nearly always help some. The trouble with last night was a full moon. A 15 mins exposure was way too much but I wanted to see what the guiding setup was capable of.

One processed single Raw file is below. Not stacked, no darks, no flats. Just a single light frame.

There are quite a few fuzzies showing up there. I can't wait to try this target again on a moonless clear night. Wonder how long we'll have to wait for one of those 

[wuthton]

Awesome effort. I believe the normal first night goes like this:

-get set up

-start phd

-calibration fails

-try again 10 times

-give up on phd and take some unguided subs

Following day learn about adjusting calibration steps.

[peroni]

Awesome effort. I believe the normal first night goes like this:

-get set up

-start phd

-calibration fails

-try again 10 times

-give up on phd and take some unguided subs

Following day learn about adjusting calibration steps.

That's kinda what I was expecting and was pleasantly surprised when it didn't happen.

[tingting44]

great night! you make it sound easy lol ive been using phd  for a few sessions now with success, never seen or used that graph tho, how do you get that graph up btw?

[Pete Presland]

excellent always nice to hear about a postive session, especially when guiding is involved!

[glowingturnip]

Awesome effort. I believe the normal first night goes like this:

-get set up

-start phd

-calibration fails

-try again 10 times

-give up on phd and take some unguided subs

Following day learn about adjusting calibration steps.

haha, yep, also

- kick telescope leg in frustration and lose polar alignment

- go inside and watch telly instead

and yes, I've never had a phd graph like that, are you sure it was plugged in ?   ;-)

[frugal]

I am currently waiting to see if this 10 minute image is going to come out, or if I too have to figure out which chicken to sacrifice to the gods of PHD. I think my main problems tonight have been that I needed an extension tube to bring the guide camera to focus and that PHD did not think it needed calibrating and kept sending the scope off in the wrong direction.

Oh yes, and I have to get up in 5 hours and go to work

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[wxsatuser]

great night! you make it sound easy lol ive been using phd  for a few sessions now with success, never seen or used that graph tho, how do you get that graph up btw?

I'm on old version....

For graph

Tools and scroll down near bottom.

[ollypenrice]

Good write up and great graph. I wouldn't focus on a star at a very different elevation than the target, though. Vega would be good for an initial focus but then I'd use a star from the Plough asterism for fine tuning for M101. Personally I try to use FWHM on a star within the final image where possible.

Olly

[peroni]

Good write up and great graph. I wouldn't focus on a star at a very different elevation than the target, though. Vega would be good for an initial focus but then I'd use a star from the Plough asterism for fine tuning for M101. Personally I try to use FWHM on a star within the final image where possible.

Olly

That was exactly what I did. Vega was my bright star to get initial focus and position/sync then it was a quick slew to M101.

The guide camera is screwed into my finder scope which is attached to the original skywatcher finder shoe. Not much leeway for changing direction.

I'll have to look into the FWHM focus method. I still use the old 10x zoom with bahtinov mask on my dslr method.

Sent from my phone :-D

[peroni]

I'm on old version....

For graph

Tools and scroll down near bottom.

Same here. Tools menu. I was just having a look around the menus as the mount was being guided. There are quite a few sections under the tools menu. I've no idea what they all do. Yet :-D

Sent from my phone :-D

[peroni]

I am currently waiting to see if this 10 minute image is going to come out, or if I too have to figure out which chicken to sacrifice to the gods of PHD. I think my main problems tonight have been that I needed an extension tube to bring the guide camera to focus and that PHD did not think it needed calibrating and kept sending the scope off in the wrong direction.

Oh yes, and I have to get up in 5 hours and go to work

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

There is a good PHD tutorial posted on these forums and also on blackwaterskies if I remember correctly.

You can force a calibration step in the advanced settings section. Click on the brain button and then tick the box to force calibration next time you hit the PHD button.

It was recommended to re-calibrate each time you change target. This worked for me the other night.

Sent from my phone :-D