A PHD2 improvement for those using ZWO guide cameras

[almcl]

The chaps at PHD2 guiding need some help testing a new version of PHD2 which reportedly will improve the performance of the program for those using ZWO guide cameras.

Unfortunately only two users have been able to respond so far and if anyone from SGL is able to help, I am sure it would be appreciated.  I've tried the new release and calibration was blisteringly fast, compared with the standard version. Guiding was hard to judge as transparency and seeing weren't great but certainly didn't appear any worse than usual.

The full details are in a thread on the PHD2 Google Groups page (round about post 54 here) but Andy Galasso's request is

Requested test procedure:

 - download and install the test version from https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-2.6.5dev6zwotest2-installer.exe

 - calibrate if necessary

 - run the Guiding Assistant and let it measure Declination backlash

 - enable PHD2 backlash compensation if the GA offers that suggestion

 - guide for a several minutes, long enough to see some declination guiding direction reversals and some backlash correction pulses

 - upload your PHD2 guide log and debug log from the session (https://openphdguiding.org/getting-help/)

 

[AKB]

I’d try this, given some clear skies...

Interested, though, as to why an improvement like this should be camera-specific?  Maked no sense to me until I checked the link in detail...

 

Quote

We were able to track down the problem and it turns out to be related to PHD2 retrieving stale data from the ZWO camera -- camera frames that started exposing before the backlash guide pulse finished. We got some help from ZWO and have a new build of PHD2 ready for testing.  We believe this will fix the backlash compensation overshoot issue and generally improve guiding for ZWO cameras. We would like some help testing it.

...Aha!  Now that makes sense.  Looking forward to trying it.

 

[Tim]

1 hour ago, AKB said:

I’d try this, given some clear skies...

Interested, though, as to why an improvement like this should be camera-specific?  Maked no sense to me until I checked the link in detail...

 

...Aha!  Now that makes sense.  Looking forward to trying it.

 

Thanks for posting that, was foxing me too without looking at it!