SGP & PHD2 guidance

[RayD]

6 minutes ago, souls33k3r said:

ah, sorry i misunderstood what you meant Makes complete sense now mate. With regards to SNR of the star, i know someone is going to rip whatever hair is left on my head for saying this but i was told by Bern that it's ok to guide on a saturated star with this tiny thing. I have done so in the past and it has also worked.

Auto-select star, isn't it the ALT+S option? if so then that's what i do but that's when it begins the guiding isn't it. I was hoping that it auto selects a star during the guiding when it loses a star for whatever reason.

I'm pretty sure i did have the range selected for the exposure settings but not sure if there was a check box which i'm missing for it to auto adjust that. 

I sincerely do apologise for these noobish questions, it's just that i really want to get comfortable with PHD2. So far, i know how to make it work but would love for it to just do it's thing without me having to sit next to it and monitor eventually losing subs because PHD2 lost the star and SGP wants to end the sequence.

Speaking of which, is there was way to tell SGP for it NOT try to end the sequence but to wait until PHD2 find the star again?

Yes a saturated star is fine, but there still needs to be more signal than noise.  

Yes ALT+S is auto select, but once selected that's it, unless you select it again.

From memory I think the auto setting is in the dropdown box of the exposure lengths.  It's been a while since I've change it, but I think that was were it was.  Personally I would just try different exposures, possibly longer than 2.5s, and stick with that.

I can't recall if there is a way for SGP to ignore PHD2.  I suspect there is but I've not had this issue so not looked much in to it.  I'll have a look later, but someone else may know.

[RayD]

6 minutes ago, RayD said:

No worries mate.  I'm back home tomorrow and if the weather's nice I'll jump on the bike and pop over.  I have a controller also as I suspect you won't gave a lead for your Pegasus.  Is yours one with a RJ12 or the later RJ45 focus port?

I'm home tomorrow night, so it wouldn't be until Sunday or Monday (Bank Holiday).

[souls33k3r]

5 minutes ago, RayD said:

No worries mate.  I'm back home tomorrow and if the weather's nice I'll jump on the bike and pop over.  I have a controller also as I suspect you won't gave a lead for your Pegasus.  Is yours one with a RJ12 or the later RJ45 focus port?

Sweet as mate, i'll be out for a bit tomorrow (wife wants to have her haircut done) but will only be around Barking any way and then will be home all day. Any time that suits you mate, no issue.

The pegasus hub whatever it is, i can't remember mate. It's the same one as you've got.

[RayD]

1 minute ago, souls33k3r said:

The pegasus hub whatever it is, i can't remember mate. It's the same one as you've got.

Yeah they have 2 versions.  I have the first lot with the RJ12, but the later ones use RJ45.  Have a look as I may be able to knock up a lead so you can use that as the controller rather than trying to house the Lakeside one.

[souls33k3r]

3 minutes ago, RayD said:

Yes a saturated star is fine, but there still needs to be more signal than noise.  

Yes ALT+S is auto select, but once selected that's it, unless you select it again.

From memory I think the auto setting is in the dropdown box of the exposure lengths.  It's been a while since I've change it, but I think that was were it was.  Personally I would just try different exposures, possibly longer than 2.5s, and stick with that.

I can't recall if there is a way for SGP to ignore PHD2.  I suspect there is but I've not had this issue so not looked much in to it.  I'll have a look later, but someone else may know.

i'll make sure i try longer exposure mate and will look in to the settings of PHD2 as well.

 

2 minutes ago, RayD said:

I'm home tomorrow night, so it wouldn't be until Sunday or Monday (Bank Holiday).

No immediate rush mate, Monday will be better for me as wife wants the kids to stay at home on Monday or if you're in town around my work place next week, you know where i live so that can work too. Whatever suits you mate. As usual, i really can't thank you enough mate. You've helped me a lot throughout this journey

[kens]

6 hours ago, souls33k3r said:

Here's the PHD2 guide log if this makes any sense to you guys.

PHD2_GuideLog_2018-05-02_214322.txt

For lost star problems the debug log is also helpful. Plus, in PHD2 you can get it to log the actual image using this page in the Brain

You can set the parameters - obviously more images means more disk space. Relative error looks at the deviations from image to image, absolute error is from the starting point.

You'll find this useful if you need help from the PHD2 forum

 

[souls33k3r]

Thank you for your help @coatesg and @RayD.

Last night was a very successful night so tested the new way of sequence start.

As usual, created the sequence using "Framing and Mosaic Wizard". Once the sequence was created, i clicked on the cog wheel icon, slewed to the target and then centred it allowing me to focus the filter i wanted to image with without having to pause the sequence.

With regards to PHD2, i used the auto exposure and throughout the night i had nothing but a very good guiding. I initially did start off with 3s exposure but this was around 10pm and the sky was a bit too bright so dropped the exposure down to 1s to accommodate the skies but once it got really dark, i changed to 3s and then 4s and guiding was much better. Any way, to test the auto exposure theory i switched the exposure to "Auto" and my guiding got nothing but better throughout the night. Really impressed by this so will keep using it.

One thing which i still do have an issue with is this guide star loss malarkey, i have found a way to circumvent the issue but cycling through stars by pressing ALT+S to choose a near saturated star and then the auto exposure bring the saturation down to acceptable range. Not sure if there is a way for PHD2 to select a brighter star and not the dim one.