PHD2 help

[Starman1115]

Hiya guys, just after some advise regarding phd. Im a complete beginner to AP and iv been getting some decent results but i decided it was time to get some guiding equipment to help make my subs longer and generally improve the image. I purchaced an Orion 50mm guide scope and a zwo asi120 camera as this was recomended to me, so tonight we had a pretty clear night so i decided to give is a whirl but lets just say that things did not go to plan and i now have a migrain lol. First of all the image on phd was very very grainy and i was having trouble spotting any stars at all, and when i did select one after a wile i was getting a warning saying there was a right assension failure as the star did not move. While i was messing around with all these problems m42 had drifted out of my camera so i had to re center that again :-(  i had better images without guiding haha but im sure once its set right it will be much better. Hopefully someone can (guide) me in the right direction. Here are some pictures of what i was getting.

[mikeyj1]

you probably locked onto a hot pixel   change auto exposure to 2.5s, and change the gamma slider under the picture to the left if the new image is too dark.  use ALT-S to auto select a star, after setting the looping going.  it will run through a calibration sequence taking about 4 mins, then the message should change to 'guiding'... and you can look at the graph (tools or view menu)

GL 

Mike

PS i just noticed the red 'Dark' and 'Cal' in the lower right of your pic... means you havent done the cal or bad pixel map setup..

[kens]

Make sure the guide scope/cam are focused properly. Do it in the daytime on a distant object and/or focus on the moon first. The PHD2 display always auto-stretches so if you are out of focus it stretches the noise giving a grainy appearance. 

[Starman1115]

9 hours ago, mikeyj1 said:

you probably locked onto a hot pixel   change auto exposure to 2.5s, and change the gamma slider under the picture to the left if the new image is too dark.  use ALT-S to auto select a star, after setting the looping going.  it will run through a calibration sequence taking about 4 mins, then the message should change to 'guiding'... and you can look at the graph (tools or view menu)

GL 

Mike

PS i just noticed the red 'Dark' and 'Cal' in the lower right of your pic... means you havent done the cal or bad pixel map setup..

Thanks mike ill give that a try. Its wierd but in mac it doesnt give me any menus to create darks etc but i downloaded phd2 on my other laptop with windows and all the menues are there.  

[Starman1115]

1 hour ago, kens said:

Make sure the guide scope/cam are focused properly. Do it in the daytime on a distant object and/or focus on the moon first. The PHD2 display always auto-stretches so if you are out of focus it stretches the noise giving a grainy appearance. 

Thanks kens, i did wounder that afterwards so ill be focusing that later in daylight to make sure its all ok. Thank you 

[Starman1115]

hiya just a quick update. I've tried to focus my guide scope this afternoon but all I'm getting is a white screen ? iv tried using the focus ring on the scope but its still not giving me any image. any ideas ?

[ChrisEll]

24 minutes ago, Starman1115 said:

hiya just a quick update. I've tried to focus my guide scope this afternoon but all I'm getting is a white screen ? iv tried using the focus ring on the scope but its still not giving me any image. any ideas ?

In daytime drop the exposure to very low.

[Starman1115]

3 minutes ago, ChrisEll said:

In daytime drop the exposure to very low.

Thanks chris, i dropped the exposure and heypresto its working. It also apears that iv been a complete donut ! When i said iv been adjusting the focus on the finder it seems i missed the minor detail of unlocking it first haha. Once i did this it focused straight in. Lesson learned i suppose. 

[RolandKol]

Also, at the start, create Library For dark images on PHD2. It will improve the image and will get rid of hot pixels.

it takes around 2 minutes.