PHD2 Query without Polar Alignment

[Z3roCool]

Hi there - this is probably a stupid newbie question so apologies.

Just got all my gear together for the first time and testing it before taking away to Morocco for (hopefully) Dark & Clear Sky!

Just trying out tracking with PHD2, I know there is a lot to learn with tweaking and getting to learn the best setup but had a few issues I just wanted to check was just the Polar Alignment that was causing it. 

Had no decent sky to Polar Align so just pointed the guide scope at a star and tried to track it. Get a message about RA not being set high enough to allow the mount to track. Presume this is because the scope is not Polar Aligned? do not want to get out in the field to find myself playing about with it. 

Hopefully when I do have clear sky was planning on using SharpCap to Polar Align and go from there.

Thanks for any input and sorry for the long post about something very beginner!

 

Tom.

[PeterCPC]

The easiest thing to do would be to open the guiding assistant when you are set up and ready to go. It will establish what are the best settings for where you are pointing. First, though, make sure you input the data in the "brain" like focal length of guidescope and pixel size. Obviously you will still need to perform a PA before you get PHD rolling. https://openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Tools.htm#Guiding_Assistant

Peter

[spillage]

+1 @PeterCPC for the guide assistant. If you are using eqmod make sure the tracking rate is not too low. About .5x rate in both dec and ra.

[Z3roCool]

16 minutes ago, spillage said:

+1 @PeterCPC for the guide assistant. If you are using eqmod make sure the tracking rate is not too low. About .5x rate in both dec and ra.

Thanks for the info. Will be setting EQMOD up at some point so would have fallen over at that