PHD vs PHD2

[keithc]

So, I have a NEQ6 Pro and an ST80 guide scope with a QHY5 II guide camera. Slew to a target and fire up PHD, select a guide star and start calibration. Calibration takes around 5 - 6 minutes and then guiding begins. So far, so good. Switch to PHD2, same target same guide star, begin calibration. West calibration begins but, after 61 steps RA calibration fails with star did not move. I've tried this with several different guide stars and the result is always the same with PHD2, calibration fails.

So what am I doing wrong? I have a good image from the camera, SNR is good at 20+ and no saturated guide star. I've tried everything I can think of but I cannot get PHD2 to work.

If anyone has any tips, advice knows what the problem is, please let me know.

[Gina]

I couldn't get PHD2 to work either and gave up in the end and stuck with PHD.

[Jokehoba]

You might get a quicker answer if you post your question to the PHD2 forum - https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/open-phd-guiding.

Have you used the Guiding Assistant to help suggest optimum settings? I have a similar set up (but have a StarShoot AG, which I understand is the same chip - but I may be wrong) and it all works fine.

[Thalestris24]

1 hour ago, keithc said:

So, I have a NEQ6 Pro and an ST80 guide scope with a QHY5 II guide camera. Slew to a target and fire up PHD, select a guide star and start calibration. Calibration takes around 5 - 6 minutes and then guiding begins. So far, so good. Switch to PHD2, same target same guide star, begin calibration. West calibration begins but, after 61 steps RA calibration fails with star did not move. I've tried this with several different guide stars and the result is always the same with PHD2, calibration fails.

So what am I doing wrong? I have a good image from the camera, SNR is good at 20+ and no saturated guide star. I've tried everything I can think of but I cannot get PHD2 to work.

If anyone has any tips, advice knows what the problem is, please let me know.

Hi

It's probably a setting - PHD2 has more of them! What focal length did you enter for your guidescope and what pixel size for your guide cam. PHD2 uses the info for calculating step size. The help and trubleshooter are both useful. 

Louise

[fireballxl5]

I've found PHD2 to be so much more reliable than 1. Using a Lodestar Mk1 at 2700mm to guide my piggy-backed wide field scope. 

[JohnC64]

I have also stayed with PHD1. Just can't get PHD2 to recognise my SX Costar on my Mac. PHD2 has a lot more options and features so it would be nice.  I must give it another go and see if I can find out whats wrong

John

[kens]

12 hours ago, keithc said:

So, I have a NEQ6 Pro and an ST80 guide scope with a QHY5 II guide camera. Slew to a target and fire up PHD, select a guide star and start calibration. Calibration takes around 5 - 6 minutes and then guiding begins. So far, so good. Switch to PHD2, same target same guide star, begin calibration. West calibration begins but, after 61 steps RA calibration fails with star did not move. I've tried this with several different guide stars and the result is always the same with PHD2, calibration fails.

So what am I doing wrong? I have a good image from the camera, SNR is good at 20+ and no saturated guide star. I've tried everything I can think of but I cannot get PHD2 to work.

If anyone has any tips, advice knows what the problem is, please let me know.

Post the PHD2 guide log for analysis

[Starlight 1]

just done a update on SG-PRO and them have to update PHD 2 to the last one for it to work , Phd 2 have work well but the 2-6-2 have more Star lost  with my GP camera .

[almcl]

On 03/10/2016 at 21:22, keithc said:

West calibration begins but, after 61 steps RA calibration fails with star did not move. I've tried this with several different guide stars and the result is always the same with PHD2, calibration fails.

I had this problem for a while, although my guide cam and scope are the same, my EQ5 non goto mount (and originally non-motored) is rather more primitive than yours.  I solved it eventually by moving the DEC Rate slider on the EQMod control panel all the way to the right which gave a value of 0.9.  This gives sufficient kick that Dec often calibrates in  under 10 moves (image below of a recent cal - may give other clues, like 500ms calibration steps) whereas before we could easily reach 80 with insufficient movement.

Another thing that makes a difference is calibrating on a star near the celestial equator (sorry that's the wrong term but I have had brain freeze).  I don't think this works in PHD but it does seem to in PHD2.

[stevear]

I have had the same problems with PHD both versions (NEQ6, Lodestar with 500 mm FL guide-scope). I found that the calibration was fine with the mount set to 'on-camera' rather than EQMOD ASCOM HEQ5/6. Whilst set to EQMOD ASCOM HEQ5/6 the calibration fails because the steps are too small. Check also that the calibration step on the guiding window is high, I use a value of 950 ms. Higher than the calculated value.

One big problem I have with PHD2 is with the returned looping images from the Lodestar. Whereas PHD version 1.14.2 always shows lots of stars, many faint ones. If we take the identical star field when switching the software to PHD2, the stars on the looping images from PHD2 are much fainter and only the brightest of stars show up. PHD2 is supposed to auto stretch the image but mine does not, or so it seems.

Has anyone else noticed this? Any comments would be helpful.

Thanks

 

Steve

[tich]

The last time I imaged anything was back in March & I were having issues with PHD2 for some reason, something I never had before so I downloaded the later version at the time & all is fine again. I guess the thing to do is try it out & see what works best for you as I remember when I started to guide I used to have issues with both versions locking up.

[michael8554]

On 9/16/2017 at 09:51, stevear said:

Whereas PHD version 1.14.2 always shows lots of stars, many faint ones. If we take the identical star field when switching the software to PHD2, the stars on the looping images from PHD2 are much fainter and only the brightest of stars show up. PHD2 is supposed to auto stretch the image but mine does not, or so it seems.

Hi Steve

PHD2 is a complete rewrite of PHD1 by a different team to Stark Labs.

So no surprise the handling of star images looks different.

The horizontal slider under the window is a stretch control.

Michael

[redtail]

When you get the warning star did not move you need to increase your step size.

 

[spillage]

@keithc before you calibrate have you tried to move the star slightly to the east and then north. Just enough to move the star and then run calibration. Might be a backlash issue.

Spill.

[Gasman]

Hi guys

An interesting thing I tried a few weeks ago was to use PHD2 under Linux and it worked flawlessly running alongside Kstars/Ekos, got great graphs and tracked easily for 15/20mins. Fast forward a few nights later I tried running PHD2 under Windows 10 using the exact same settings and the calibration kept failing saying the star hadn`t moved enough, had a right carry on trying to get it to work so not quite sure whats happening there??.

Steve

[ollypenrice]

As Redtail says, try increading step size. Once you are guiding, run the Guide Assistant for a good few minutes and apply the suggestions. When you have it sorted PHD2 is a dream.

Olly

[kirkster501]

Is the scope synced to the sky before you start the calibration procedure so it has an idea of where it is pointing?

[Starlight 1]

I was calibration again last night and never seen this before , set the scope to -20 to +20 before starting calibration.

[astrosathya]

I might as well as my experience here. I was a user of PHD1 because my older opticstar guide camera was not compatible with PHD2, and I wasn't complaining either because I had flawless guiding. 

I purchased the QHY-5LII last season and knowing it was compatible with PHD2, I downloaded the same. Thats where the problems began. It always showed Orthogonality error. Prior to this I used to do 5min exposures with rough polar scope PA and faced no such issue with PHD1 and after switching over to PHD2, problems galore. I've decided to stick to PHD1 and EQMOD combo for this upcoming season. I've tried guiding assistant etc.

Anyone have any idea why PHD2 throws up orthogonality issues? 

[MarsG76]

OK reading about PHD2 on SGL, Cloudy Nights, Astronomy Forum and IIS I became tempted and downloaded and installed it.. The layout sure looks good, can't wait to try it in real life AP.. hopefully it is what it's cracked up to be and I'll have minimal issues.

Fingers crossed that it not only works but it's an improvement over PHD.

[Atreta]

I began to have problems in phd2,  it can't calibrate anymore.   Keeps saying star did not move enough, then i tried to use phd1,  but my asi120mc doesn't show up in the list,  so i choose windows wdm or something like that and choose on camera in the mount menu but as soon as i press guiding it crashes.  But if i don't close the crashed phd1 i can see it completing the calibration steps.  

I wonder why phd2 isn't working anymore. 

[kens]

Most likely because the calibration steps are too small. Check you've got the right focal length, pixel size and guide rate in the calibration step calculator and make sure you are not calibrating at too high a declination.