Meade LX90 phd2 autoguiding pains!

[marcusf]

Good people of the Astro Community, I need help please! I am trying to autoguide an LX90 with phd2. It seems the Dec instruction is sent to the RA motor and vice versa and I just cannot seem to get around this. PHD2 will calibrate but reports as 'questionable'.

I've tried 3 cameras, more leads than you can shake a stick at, both straight and crossover, and patched the handbox (A1F7 v6) a few times now as recommended in another forum.

Does anyone have any direct experience of this and found a solution please as this is driving (no pun intended) me nuts! I can't think I am the only person to have suffered here?!

So, for info;

Meade LX90ACF 8" (on a wedge)
Finderscope converted to take camera (T7 - ZWO ASI mini unbranded)
Windows 10, PHD2, Ascom Meade Mount Drivers
Camera to PC, PC to Handbox, connections all good and working

So far this year, I have spent most clear nights - and there haven't been many - trying every setting and option I can think of to get this work! Any help and advice would be much appreciated!

[ollypenrice]

I'm not sure how to address the problem in PHD2 but but when guiding in AstroArt you can simply choose to 'Swap x for y' (that's to say RA for Dec.) You can download a free trial of AA which won't save images but should allow you to guide, I think.

Olly

[marcusf]

Cheers Olly... I've give that a shot. I'm not dedicated to phd2 - just so long as whatever I end up with works!

[michael8554]

Could you post a link to one of your Guide Logs that includes a Calibration ?

If you click on a star and use the Tools /  Manual Guide set to 5000 does the star move ? Which directions for N and S, E and W ?

Reversals of N with S, and E with W don't matter, PHD2 will cope with that. but not N with E for instance.

You might have to use PHD (1) not PHD2 :

http://www.astronomyforum.net/meade-telescope-forums/97647-guide-autoguiding-lx90.html

Michael 

[cjdawson]

I use PHD2 with success with my Meade LX-90 EMC, yep, it's the 20 year old version of the scope, but it's going strong

 

Here's my thoughts, as you haven't posted much information about your setup.

Firstly, don't bother with an ST-4 port on the mount if you have one.  Use pulse guiding instead.  It'll work better.   I do this by using the POTH Hub in Ascom to connect to the scope and connect my software to that instead of directly to the mount.

I took some time to create a dark library and bad pixel map for the camera.  This way PHD2 won't try and guide on a bad pixel ?

Finally, when I start guiding, I've setup PHD2 to do recalibrate.   This will confirm that the guiding is setup and working problem before things get going.

How I connect things for guiding is as follows....

1. Guide camera attached to a SkyWatcher ST-80 piggy backed on the LX-90.

2. Handbox is connected to ascom via a USB to serial cable.

 

In PHD2, the mount is set to the POTH hub.   Aux mount is disabled.  The camera is set to my guide camera.

 

That's pretty much everything that needs to happen to get it going.