Auto Guiding and EQMod

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Hi,

I now have had 3 nights imaging and I think things are looking better each night I am out and things getting easier. I would now like to track with the guidescope setup I have which is a Starwave 50mm guidescope and Altair GP130M mono guide camera.

I have installed PHD Guiding 2 and gone through the initial setup. When I try o use PHD it automatically opens up EQMod but as this was already open with Stellarium scope it opens a 2nd instance and says it cannot connect to mount. 

Do I need to install 2 instances of EQMod? If so does that just work or do I have to do something extra?

Or is PHD the wrong software for my setup?

Steve

[Ronclarke]

Does it do the same if you open version 1.3 ofPHD??

 

Ron

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Don't know, I will have to download and see.

Cheers

Steve

 

[ejp1684]

This doesn't answer your question but is just a comment on Stellarium. I tried using it with PHD2 and didn't find it very satisfactory. So I changed to Cartes du Ciel and haven't had any problems since.

Eric.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Managed to solve this now. I was selecting EQ5/EQ6 mount but a search of previous posts suggested I should select on camera which seems to work a treat.

[kens]

Many many people use EQMOD and PHD2 successfully so there's something else going on.

How are you connecting your computer to the mount?

[teoria_del_big_bang]

5 hours ago, kens said:

Many many people use EQMOD and PHD2 successfully so there's something else going on.

How are you connecting your computer to the mount?

Hi,

Solved, seemed to guide last night just fine until Windows decided to upgrade itself. I was selecting EQ5/EQ6 but when I selected "on camera" if=t calibrated and seemed to work just fine. I will post later with what I am doing just to check if more the experienced can confirm all is okay or not.

Steve

[Kaliska]

I always found this useful when i got started connecting things up. http://www.lightvortexastronomy.com/tutorial-setting-up-an-equatorial-mount-on-ascom-with-eqmod-stellarium-and-cartes-du-ciel.html

[teoria_del_big_bang]

2 hours ago, Kaliska said:

I always found this useful when i got started connecting things up. http://www.lightvortexastronomy.com/tutorial-setting-up-an-equatorial-mount-on-ascom-with-eqmod-stellarium-and-cartes-du-ciel.html

Cheers, that's a great help 

Steve

[chrisshillito]

Usually a second instance of EQMOD appearing means you have installed some of your applications with different adminstration rights. If all client apps are run with the same rights then only one instance will start. My guess would be that either phd or stellariumscope is being run with administrator rights.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

On 5/16/2018 at 00:36, chrisshillito said:

Usually a second instance of EQMOD appearing means you have installed some of your applications with different adminstration rights. If all client apps are run with the same rights then only one instance will start. My guess would be that either phd or stellariumscope is being run with administrator rights.

Thanks. Yes Stellariumscope is set to have administrator rights. Is this an issue, should I change it ?

Cheers Steve

[chrisshillito]

Its an issue if other applications accessing EQMOD don't have admin rights. So you have two choices - either change everything to run with admin (assuming you trust the software involved) or change stellaruimscope (I see no reason sure why it should explicitly require admin rights but you may want to check with the developer).

[John78]

So - this shouldn't be able to happen (its the way its architected) assuming you pick the same HEQ5 (and not a simulator etc..) from the drop down it should just connect to the same instance of eqmod as stellarium scope.

If you click properties on the ascom selector before clicking connect does it look the same as the old one with the same com port.

 

The only reservation I have, is stellarium / stellarium scope and ascom really don't play properly together in my experience and require starting in the correct same, order every time - I long since swapped to CdC, whilst nowhere near as pretty as Stellarium just works, first time, every time no matter what order you start things in.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

1 hour ago, John78 said:

So - this shouldn't be able to happen (its the way its architected) assuming you pick the same HEQ5 (and not a simulator etc..) from the drop down it should just connect to the same instance of eqmod as stellarium scope.

If you click properties on the ascom selector before clicking connect does it look the same as the old one with the same com port.

 

The only reservation I have, is stellarium / stellarium scope and ascom really don't play properly together in my experience and require starting in the correct same, order every time - I long since swapped to CdC, whilst nowhere near as pretty as Stellarium just works, first time, every time no matter what order you start things in.

I will check next time I start everything up.

Last time I had a night out everything did seem to connect okay, including the guide scope but unfortunately I had a lot of re-occurrences of the blue screen of death with my windows, which has plagued me since I started and not yet found out what is causing it. I have to bottom this issue before anything else.

I know if the USB cable from the mount gets disconnected whilst running EQMOD then the same happens so my prime suspect is something to do with the mount, hopefully the cabling not the motherboard in the mount. My next move is to try another USB cablt to the mount, shame it will be £30 wasted if not that but I have to try it and eliminate something.

However on top of these issues I am starting to think I will give CdC a try anyway. Other posts have remarked how stable  it is.  Whilst I do not think it is any issues with stellarium I may well switch to this at least until I sort my other issues as it does seem to work more reliably according to many comments I have read already.

Steve

[david_taurus83]

Another recommendation for CdC. I too tried to work with Stellarium as it's a better looking software but couldn't get on with it, primarily because I couldn't get it to sync the mounts true position. With CdC this works every time. My setup routine is as follows:

Get everything setup and cables connected.

Start CdC.

Connect to mount, at which point the Eqmod box pops up.

Start PHD2 and connect to all.

Start APT and connect to mount.

Use CdC to slew to a target.

Though i need to start from the home position and use CdC to slew to a target, if it's out a little I can then move the target into FOV and hit 'sync' in CdC and the reticle on screen corrects itself.

 

You need to make sure the location in both Eqmod and CdC are the same though. Since getting plate solving to work in APT I just use this to sync the mount to position now and it auto updates CdC at the same time.

 

I still use Stellarium separately to see what's in the sky at night.

[John78]

29 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I will check next time I start everything up.

Last time I had a night out everything did seem to connect okay, including the guide scope but unfortunately I had a lot of re-occurrences of the blue screen of death with my windows, which has plagued me since I started and not yet found out what is causing it. I have to bottom this issue before anything else.

I know if the USB cable from the mount gets disconnected whilst running EQMOD then the same happens so my prime suspect is something to do with the mount, hopefully the cabling not the motherboard in the mount. My next move is to try another USB cablt to the mount, shame it will be £30 wasted if not that but I have to try it and eliminate something.

However on top of these issues I am starting to think I will give CdC a try anyway. Other posts have remarked how stable  it is.  Whilst I do not think it is any issues with stellarium I may well switch to this at least until I sort my other issues as it does seem to work more reliably according to many comments I have read already.

Steve

Have you got the BSOD dump files or have the code?  I had a lot of issues with BSOD with Win7 32bit and astro software.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

8 hours ago, John78 said:

Have you got the BSOD dump files or have the code?  I had a lot of issues with BSOD with Win7 32bit and astro software.

Hi,

Are these dumps something you have to do whilst the screen is present, before it restarts ?

I will have to look up on this. I did write down the faults a few times, not sure if I still have them as I gave up after the forth or fifth different fault.

I am hooking up my computer each night after work even though not doing any actual astronomy just to try to get the BSOD to gather more information, last couple of nights never put a foot wrong. If I get any more details will post, I would be grateful for any help.

Steve

[John78]

8 hours ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Hi,

Are these dumps something you have to do whilst the screen is present, before it restarts ?

I will have to look up on this. I did write down the faults a few times, not sure if I still have them as I gave up after the forth or fifth different fault.

I am hooking up my computer each night after work even though not doing any actual astronomy just to try to get the BSOD to gather more information, last couple of nights never put a foot wrong. If I get any more details will post, I would be grateful for any help.

Steve

So everytime it BSOD's it writes the log to the screen and the hard disc so either screen shot or the log file should help identify the issue.