Couple of guiding questions

[PaulR1]

The other night I got all setup for my first try to image a DSO : Pinwheel Galaxy.

Some setup information .

Im using (for now ) the finder scope which is not bolted down solid but sitting in the finder scope postion on my 200 PDS with a QHY 5-II Camera on it, on a NEQ6 mount.

Best I could get for the session of imaging was about 6.4" Total RMS error.

I took 10 x 3 minute images @ 400ISO and this produced this image :

So I ran the guide assistant and the suggestions it offered brought the total error down to 1.08"

Of course I am very new to this so would like to know if it is even necessary to get this error number lower than this .

Here is the image from the guiding assistant:

I believe the bad backlash  was probably down to balancing as there is zero discernable play in the axis.

One other thing , where I live is an apartment above a shop so I dont actually have solid ground to put the mount on its on very large flat roof, which is well constructed, I actually have to get within 1 m of the scope and jump up and down hard to see any kind of wobble on the scope.

What you think folks ?

 

[kens]

Don't obsess over the guide stats. What you want is small, round stars in your images. The guide graph can be used to help you get there by using it as a diagnostic aid to identify mechanical issues. To do this you need to learn how to use the guide logs. They are accessible from the Help menu under Open Log Folder. At ther PHD2 website there are links to guides and tutorials for Best Practices and Analyszing Guide Results https://openphdguiding.org/

You can also download the PHD2 log viewer from https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-log-viewer/