Firecapture Autoguiding

[solwisesteve]

Some advice please using the Autoguiding feature in Firecapture.

So I've been trying to use the autoguiding built into firecapture and, I admit, with pretty poor results.

The scope is a Nexstar 6SE on the AZ mount (I know... saving up for an EQ6) and I've been trying to take a video capture of Jupiter.

So I went through the scope alignment several times until I got it as good as I could.

Looking through the EP Jupiter was nice and steady with good focus and four moons showing and no discernable drift. I fitted the neximage with barlow and adjusted the focus as best I could. Now I set the ROI to give a reasonable zoom on the area of interest but then found that the drift was quite high. In fact it would go out of the ROI after about 10-15 seconds. So I've been trying to use the 'autoguiding' feature to correct for this but, I admit, with poor results :-(

I can get the firecapture to guide but trouble getting the balance right between small/smooth adjusts which end up being not enough or longer/more aggressive adjusts that kick the image all over the place :-(

Has anyone used firecapture autoguiding? Any words of advice please?

tbh I can find very little out there on 'the net' about using this feature.... maybe because it's not that great. I have ordered a guidscope setup from FLO so I can do 'proper' guiding but until that arrives I'd like to see if the firecapture autoguiding can help.

All help and advice appreciated :-)

 

 

 

 

[Merlin66]

I don’t think FireCapture does guiding. There’s no effective feedback to the mount - ST4 cable etc. I think it probably can, within the limits of the image try to suppress minimal movements.

you question would be better addressed on the FireCapture forum. Torsten is very responsive.

 

[solwisesteve]

You might be right..... no guiding but it certainly pretends to :-)

I mean it has scope control and the image does jump each time the direction arrow on the screen flashes.  Actually there seems to be quite a delay between 'flash' and movement of the view which is also a problem.

I might try the forum.

Thanks

Can't seem to find a Firecapture forum... a google search and looking on the firecapture web site hasn't yielded any mention of a forum :-(

 

[Merlin66]

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/firecapture/info

Hope this helps

 

 

[solwisesteve]

Didn't have a yahoo account. Just spent 20 mins trying to create an account so I can join the group. I've given up, at least for the moment, I have tried 6 times to join the group and each time it says error loading the content.

[fireballxl5]

why not just use the best, PHD2? 

https://openphdguiding.org/

Does it not support your camera?

 

[solwisesteve]

I only have one camera and that's being used for the capture i.e. looking at jupiter.

Not sure I can use PHD2 that way i.e. do the guiding through the camera using the planet as the guide point and also have firecapture collecting the main video. Also, I'd think (beginner speaking here I agree so please correct me if I'm wrong), that good guiding really needs a point source as the target e.g. a star. No/Yes?

[IanL]

Worth checking that the directions correspond to the image orientation. If you switch off guiding and use the up down left right arrows on screen, the target should move that way. If not you can change a setting to reverse the direction.

You need to make sure the camera is orthogonal to the alt-az axes, again use the on screen arrows to move the target and rotate tge camera until it moves left right up down and not diagonally across the screen.

Failing that, ensure your AZ mount is level and do the best initial alignment you can, ensuring date, time, location, etc. are correct. Poor tracking will cause the guiding to struggle.

I have reasonable success on guiding for solar with an AZ4, but any of the above causes me problems.

[MarsG76]

Firecapture DOES guide, I used it in the past for capturing a timelapse of the moon shadow creeping across teh surface, locked in on a crater and for a timelapse of jupiter rotating... I connected my GPUSB to my autoguide port on the CGEM.

With in the firecapture program you simply run the guiding feature and select what to guide on, whether its a planet of a crater on the moon, it has no difference. the only thig is that there is no calibration on fire capture and if you find that the object being guided is actually being pushed further away from center, or its set position, than you need to go into setting and reverse X or Y guiding (depending which direction its being pushed away) by selecting the "reverse" radio button next to X or Y, or both... Once set, it seems to work very well for lunar or planetary guiding.

[solwisesteve]

I'll try again tonight and check the direction. Do you have any recommendations please for the other settings on the guiding setup screen? If using this on Jupiter then I did wonder if setting the guide point on the centre of the planet would cause issues i.e. quite a shift off centre before it would react?

[solwisesteve]

Right I must be doing something wrong because the guiding just ain't working :-(

I spent about 2 hours last night (WOW it was a clear/dark night!) and got no where :-(

So the problem is the arrows on the FC screen do NOT move the object/view. I know ASCOM is okay because the ASCOM arrows DO move the object but pressing on the FC arrows makes them flash red but no movement :-(

Any suggestions please?

It's no big deal because I should have a 'proper' guidescope coming next week so I can then use PHD2 but it would be interesting to know where I'm going wrong with FC.

[Merlin66]

Honestly I don't think you're doing anything wrong - you seem to be assuming that the FC guiding is actually mount guiding - which it's not.

Wait till you get your guider , use PHD2 and you'll be OK.

(In the meantime download PHD2 and practise with the simulator settings)

[IanL]

1 hour ago, Merlin66 said:

Honestly I don't think you're doing anything wrong - you seem to be assuming that the FC guiding is actually mount guiding - which it's not.

Wait till you get your guider , use PHD2 and you'll be OK.

(In the meantime download PHD2 and practise with the simulator settings)

Sorry but this is incorrect. FireCpture will guide the mount quite happily. For planetary, it locks on to features in a region of interest rather than guiding on a star centroid.

If the arrows aren't working in FC but are fine in whatever ASCOM driver you are using, then you haven't connected FC to the mount driver at all or properly.  You need to go in to the main settings dialog and click the "Telescope" option under "Hardware". Check the "Use Telescope Interface Box", choose the correct driver in the dropdowns and click "Initialise Interface".

Once you've done that you can then you in to the "Autoguiding" setting under "Hardware" to set the parameters.  Finally under "Options" on the main screen check the "Autoguide" option. If something is wrong, it will throw up an error telling you to set up the telescope interface, so I assume you've done the above steps before? I can only assume that you haven't picked the correct driver or something so FC thinks there is a telescope connected when its commands are actually going to the ASCOM simulator or something?

Attaching a few screenshots of your settings might help.  You don't need to wait for a clear night to get at least as far as testing the setup to get the arrows working in FC. If they do, then guiding should work.

[Merlin66]

I stand corrected!

Yes,

It would appear with the right cable connections it is possible to use FC for guiding.

 

[solwisesteve]

5 hours ago, IanL said:

Sorry but this is incorrect. FireCpture will guide the mount quite happily. For planetary, it locks on to features in a region of interest rather than guiding on a star centroid.

If the arrows aren't working in FC but are fine in whatever ASCOM driver you are using, then you haven't connected FC to the mount driver at all or properly.  You need to go in to the main settings dialog and click the "Telescope" option under "Hardware". Check the "Use Telescope Interface Box", choose the correct driver in the dropdowns and click "Initialise Interface".

Once you've done that you can then you in to the "Autoguiding" setting under "Hardware" to set the parameters.  Finally under "Options" on the main screen check the "Autoguide" option. If something is wrong, it will throw up an error telling you to set up the telescope interface, so I assume you've done the above steps before? I can only assume that you haven't picked the correct driver or something so FC thinks there is a telescope connected when its commands are actually going to the ASCOM simulator or something?

Attaching a few screenshots of your settings might help.  You don't need to wait for a clear night to get at least as far as testing the setup to get the arrows working in FC. If they do, then guiding should work.

Yes... done all as above. FC says all is fine and it starts ASCOM fine and says connected okay... I'll get the scope setup and get some screen shots organised.

Thanks for your help.

[solwisesteve]

Okay some setup screens:

 

 

So anything obvious (or not) that I'm missing here?

As I say the onscreen ASCOM direction arrows work but the green FC ones don't. Also Nexstar Observer List and Astroplanner both seem to work fine with ASCOM though, obviously, I don't have these running at the same time as FC ;-)

Thanks for any help :-)

Steve

 

 

 

[IanL]

Does the Celestron driver function as an ASCOM hub? i.e. can more than one application connect to it simultaneously?

If not, it might be that something is already connected preventing FC from controlling the mount.

You can test this by connecting to the POTH driver in the ASCOM chooser. Within POTH you then set up the Celestron driver in the usual way. POTH functions as a hub and allows multiple applications to control a non-hub driver.

Not sure that is going to cure it but worth a shot.

[solwisesteve]

Tried POTH.

Astroplanner has no issues talking to the scope via ASCOM/POTH. FC though - nope. Pressing the green guide buttons (with CTRL pressed for 5x speed) and not a squeak :-(

As I say... not a big deal 'cause hopefully, by the end of the week, I'll have the new guide scope fitted and then I'll be sweating over PHD2 ;-)

[solwisesteve]

Arrrr.... so this is a bit of a so-and-so.... the Nexstar scopes don't support tracking... I mean guiding via software. When I tried PHD2 using the simulator camera it says my mount doesn't support guiding

So a bit of trawling 'the net' and it looks like this is indeed the case :-(

Now I'm getting a bit depressed now :-( Apparently this is only supported in EQ mount mode not AZ :-(

So I have a guide scope on the way from FLO which is as much use as... :-(

 

 

 

 

 

[solwisesteve]

Okay there's a fix :-)

Got a support email back from FLO (damn good for a Sunday if I might say so). Apparently you can guide (with PHD2) going in through camera-ST4 port. So you can use ASCOM in the AUX setup via the handset to get data back from the mount but then guide using the ST4 port on the mount through the camera.

Not tried it yet... I'll see if I get a spare 30 mins this evening.

[Merlin66]

In the middle screen shot I notice the "Send periodic corrections to the mount" is unticked?? I assume this means the guide signals are not sent????

 

[solwisesteve]

27 minutes ago, Merlin66 said:

In the middle screen shot I notice the "Send periodic corrections to the mount" is unticked?? I assume this means the guide signals are not sent????

 

I took that to mean if you need to send specific, regular corrections because of an issue with the mount. So this would be unlike proper guiding where the corrections are irregular and dependant upon the drift.

[JohnSadlerAstro]

Hi,

I have to use the camera ST4 and Handset ports for guiding, and when those parts aren't broken (which they are atm ) I can get very consistent results. 

This is probably a side issue, but will your mount take a wedge? It would simplify the guiding and tracking a lot.  

John

[solwisesteve]

Yes I could use a wedge but I don't hear good reports from people using them. I'll try going through the camera... it sounds like this will work :-) Meanwhile saving for a proper EQ mount ;-)