PEC and AVX

[Shelster1973]

Am just about to bite the bullet and buy a guidecam and was looking at how guiding works along with PEC......and was just wanting to clarify a few things in my head.

From the guide in the AVX manual, it appears I carry out a 2+4 alignment, followed by an ASPA.  Then, i put my guidecam into the main eyepiece holder on the scope, focus this up (am guessing USB cable back to laptop and use Sharpcap or similar), then when this is done and camera is oriented correctly, attach the ST4 cable from cam output to mount and then have teh mount record the PE from this.......then when it comes to imaging, just add a step into my workflow that after 2+4 and ASPA, go in and turn on PE playback.

Does this sound about right?

[Blazar]

Have you seen the set of astrophotography videos from Forest Tanaka?

This one is all about guiding, and PEC..and he uses an AVX in the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW8NyT3r2LU

They are all a good view.

[Shelster1973]

Cheers for the link....will have a look when BT get their fingers out and finally connect my internet again.

[Blazar]

I have just started to learn how to guide. So I set up my WO Star 71 with its separate guide scope (basically a big finder scope), and that is where the guide camera sits (I have a DSLR attached to the main scope (as that is what will do the imaging). The guide camera has the ST4 cable (like a phone cable) from the guide camera to the mount auto guider port. The guide camera then also has a USB connection to the laptop. Run the free guide program PHD2. I have found focusing the guide camera to be the most awkward part!

Also I always do a couple of star ASPA's. So do a 2 star, plus 4 then an ASPA. Turn off the mount, reset it all to the start position again, then do another 2 Plus 4 and ASPA to get really close. Also helps if you have a 10mm reticle eyepiece to do the star alignments....

[Shelster1973]

Blazzar, cheers for the info.

Have done some guiding previously with a hobbled webcam and am fairly happy with the whole setup of it, although the guide pulses for that came through a serial cable and not the ST4 port.

What I was after clarifying was running the PEC routine for the mount and the correct workflow for doing it right.

Just thinking that when I actually do setup guiding properly it makes one cable less running from laptop to mount as can use the ST4 port instead of having the serial>usb adaptor in there.  Just have to remember to set PHD2 up for 'on camera' guiding

[Blazar]

Right. Sorry. I have never bothered with running the PEC routine (but guess I will do at some point when I break out the WO again). In Forest's video he kicks it off after the mount is actually guiding, then just hits 'Record', then it will auto stop after 1 minute. Then just hit playback before actually starting your runs.

[Shelster1973]

Cool...seems like my thought process matches his.  That makes me OK or him as mental as me.....

Have run it previosult but without any form of guiding so hopefully this will provide some good results.

Just need to sort out a few concrete pads for my tripod feet now and am all good

[Thalestris24]

Hi

If you're autoguiding it's probably not worth doing PEC. PHD2, for example, is quite capable of making all the guiding corrections you need once you've balanced and polar aligned properly. Doing all the PEC recording stuff just uses up valuable imaging time!

Louise

[Shelster1973]

Was under impression that you only need to do the PEC recording once every blue moon....if so seems worthwhile to spend the 10 mins to record it and reduce tracking errors to as small as possible. Should take the load off the guiding then

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

[Thalestris24]

Was under impression that you only need to do the PEC recording once every blue moon....if so seems worthwhile to spend the 10 mins to record it and reduce tracking errors to as small as possible. Should take the load off the guiding then

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

You can try it and see! If you find you get better guiding with PEC, then all well and good. Do post your findings. I suspect that you won't see a lot of difference and there are plenty of other things to worry about that will likely cause you frustration and affect your guiding performance...

Louise