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Can i face another frustrating night guiding....

paul mc c

By paul mc c
in Imaging - Discussion

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kens

kens

Posted
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7 hours ago, paul mc c said:

I actually got a bit of success tonight,yes Kens,i wasnt giving phd time to calibrate,feel so stupid now,i thought it was an instant action,but now know i was wrong :hiding:,i will give it another go it it clears a bit.

This is not uncommon as it is not obvious when calibration is taking place if you are not accustomed to it. It might be possible to get some sort of popup added when calibrating so you know to wait. Calibration is THE most important activity in PHD2 as it needs it to work out how big and in what direction the corrections are needed.

Once you've calibrated, run the guiding assistant for 10 minutes or so and use it recommendations. Tick the box the does backlash calculations as well.

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AngryDonkey

AngryDonkey

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Glad you are making progress. You might know this already but when you carry out the calibration (i.e. first run or if you force a recalibration) you should do this on a star close to the celestial equator (I think PHD will actually warn you if this is not the case). This way you will get the best calibration and PHD will automatically adjust to the target you are actually imaging later.

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carastro

carastro

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I know I use PHD 1, but many of the things quoted above I never do, I just click on a star in the FOV (my finderguider is aligned with my imaging scope), click on PHD and away it goes, and I have been imaging since 2009.  Never had a problem since the early days. 

Carole

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tooth_dr

tooth_dr

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37 minutes ago, carastro said:

I know I use PHD 1, but many of the things quoted above I never do, I just click on a star in the FOV (my finderguider is aligned with my imaging scope), click on PHD and away it goes, and I have been imaging since 2009.  Never had a problem since the early days. 

Carole

Your images are a testiment to your success Carole with PHD1!

I was using PHD1 and reluctantly switched to PHD2 after a failed attempt of getting it to work.  It does offer a lot of features, and I would recommend trying PHD2 Paul.

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carastro

carastro

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It does offer a lot of features, and I would recommend trying PHD2 Paul.

I have PHD2 on one of my laptops and I can get it to work, but I find all the info input requirements puts me off as I don't know the answers to many of them, plus I don't like the histogram with PHD2, so just decided I wouldn't bother since it works just fine on PHD1.

Carole 

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JohnSadlerAstro

JohnSadlerAstro

Posted
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That looks far better than mine, which always end up looking like a bed of nails! :D The issue for me is wobbly power supply and poor polar alignment, both of which are - fortunately - easy to solve. It'll be exciting to see what results you can get once you've got the guiding working ok. :) 

John 

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alan potts

alan potts

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That is great news maybe for Christmas I will get mine to work, BTW just found out a brand new camera is faulty, this is the latest thing to go wrong. The ST4 cable was not making all the connections or at least that is my opinion, so me throwing money at it, albeit not a massive amount didn't work, back to the drawing board.

Alan

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paul mc c

paul mc c

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5 hours ago, alan potts said:

That is great news maybe for Christmas I will get mine to work, BTW just found out a brand new camera is faulty, this is the latest thing to go wrong. The ST4 cable was not making all the connections or at least that is my opinion, so me throwing money at it, albeit not a massive amount didn't work, back to the drawing board.

Alan

Keep at it,i was ready to pack it in,as every thing i tried just wasnt working, it was one really simple thing that i didnt do,giving phd time to calibrate my mount as i thought that was done instantly,now i have got my first guided images...still a big work in progress, but i am now on the right lines and have 5 min subs and know i can get beyond that,but wont run before i can walk.

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alan potts

alan potts

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6 hours ago, paul mc c said:

Keep at it,i was ready to pack it in,as every thing i tried just wasnt working, it was one really simple thing that i didnt do,giving phd time to calibrate my mount as i thought that was done instantly,now i have got my first guided images...still a big work in progress, but i am now on the right lines and have 5 min subs and know i can get beyond that,but wont run before i can walk.

The silly thing is all the time I have been thinking it is me and blaming myself and it's not. I wasted a long time trying to guide with the wrong cable, sold to me as the correct one about 5/6 years ago and then had a new faulty camera which can happen but don't stop you thinking why me. I have at least managed some decent shots with the mount alone and it has been a part of the learn curve, pretty good with PShop now which I thought was going to be my main problem area with so much in it. Still I am very pleased for you and hope it's not long before I see some great shots from you, I will keep an eye open. I have to say though it would have never worked because of the cable on the Mammut from Brightstar, trying to guide/calibrate with the cover on the guidescope for over 2 hours makes me laugh now.

Like you I want to go onto a better camera than the 40D mod that I use but I want to ground myself on this first, also with the new CMOS type up and coming I want chance to see where this goes before shelling out a great deal.

Alan

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kirkster501

kirkster501

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On 11/03/2018 at 17:01, paul mc c said:

My kit is c9.25 c89ed neq6 pro,qhy5 on 50mm guide scope,PHD2.

Calibration does not start and both camera and mount are  connected.

Eqpro and ascom are also connected using eq direct cable.

I agree, sometimes I have seemingly unexplained issues as well.  Like a graph that is smooth then starts to go walkabout for no apparent reason....

As an aside, at the focal length of the C9.25 and using a guidescope,  you will have some difficulties getting really nice round stars especially on a NEQ6 that is not permanently in an observatory.  Not impossible, but tricky and I have been there and got the T-shirt.  You need to be looking at OAG to guide at that FL and that introduces some additional complexities.

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Thalestris24

Thalestris24

Posted
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17 hours ago, Gina said:

I've got fed up with equipment failure and haven't felt up to any imaging this season even on the odd occasions when the sky has been clear.

Oh dear, sorry to hear that Gina :( I've not been able to do much at all so far this year and it's nearly April already. All my otherwise working gear has been lying idle and gathering dust cos of the weather :( 

Louise

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