Totally fed up can anyone help

[alan potts]

10 hours ago, Laurin Dave said:

Hi Alan.. probably already done this but check correct pixel size and guide scope focal length in Phd.  Incorrect info for these can give that error as I’ve found 

Dave

The scope was showing 250 and 2.90um, though I have a feeling the scope is 246mm, is this serious? Edit, checked and it's 242mm needs changing, that I thought was part of the automation system but it appears only the pixel size is, thanks.

Alan

[alan potts]

10 hours ago, Xiga said:

Are you doing pulse guiding in Phd2? 

I assume you are using Eqmod? If so (and you should!) then check your Guide Speed multipliers. This error is known to happen when they are set too low, like x0.1. You should set them to x0.5

Xiga, no I am not using EQmod at the moment, I just wanted to get it working and I was using 1, 1.5 2, and 2.5 seconds to try and get it to do something. I need to do one step at a time, EQmod is next, I find it very difficult to understand from in many cases poor instructions. Take EQmod for example read the instructions twice and only found out later as a result of a video you needed a CDC atlas to bring it up or dig very deep into the program, didn't see a word in the instruction I read. EQ mod next if I'm alive, and don't go away I will need you for sure.

Alan

[alan potts]

9 hours ago, Thalestris24 said:

Hi Alan

Can you do some screen snips of PHD2 showing the whole phd2 window when you're trying to calibrate and one of the relevant phd2 settings you're using. A video might even be better.

We can get to the bottom of this!

Louise

I don't know how to do this☹️, I am not at all IT minded but try, PS I find OK though. In any case what is there to see, it never got past Cal, and I didn't change anything from the default setting until over a hour after I started in an effort to do something. I feel it's the cable or F/L, the cable was new too, I'm sure it's not PA. I have 2 other cables that Mods sent me, lots of nice people on here. I'll get there I just felt cheesed off last night after my umpteenth failure, I'm sure I'm not alone in being at these gates.

Alan

[alan potts]

6 hours ago, Xiga said:

I get you mean dude, and there's no good reason why ST4 guiding shouldn't be working, but pulse guiding via Eqmod is not only better, its actually much, much simpler too. It doesn't add complexity, it actually reduces it. Phd2 can then calculate the no. of calibration steps itself automatically for you, as it knows where in the sky the mount is pointing. Fewer variables to get wrong. 

If I already had an APO and an EQ6, I would spend the extra £35 to make my life simpler.

Louise's idea of screen shots of Phd2 setup is a great idea. 

@alan potts sorry to ask an obvious question, but I presume you are able to get an image on screen ok during daytime, with the guide cam on the scope? 

I have this cable but have never tried using EQmod, I want to get the thing to work trying something I have set up many times before but failed, any change to what I have done is complicating issue for me, so I want to do it in easy stages, I have everything(I think) required in the laptop, I have 3 different laptops in case two don't work. The guide scope is showing fine it is not this it showed clear star pictures, very clear.

Alan

[alan potts]

Hope I have not missed anyone and thanks to all, I feel the very last reply was most important on reflection, it is failing at the first step!. I need to checkout the cable which is where I feel it may lie, it is brand new too.

I know this does work because a faulty camera from Lodstar did the first part of Cal last year, so this sort of rules out the mount, or half of it, the contacts in the Lodstar were faulty so I had some working parts. Any idea how that felt, wonderful then oh no in the space of a few minutes.

I have an odd feeling the cable is no good again 3 times this has happened now, should have checked. carole I have PHD 1 but need to check this guidescope F/L it states 250mm in the program, I think it is 246mm, maybe 4mm is not important. So this at least gives me things to try. I don't want to go to EQ mod until I prove this will work, I have had 2 years of this, not all the time because I have not tried guiding all the time, this will be my 7th attempt and have spent over 600 quid and I'm still failing. Don't worry I can change to 3 different scopes and two cameras so plenty to keep you all busy. I also have 3 ST4 cables now but thought 'try the brand new one"

Edit I have found thanks to help that the F/L is 242mm not 250mm, so this needs to be put right, I think the last one I used was 250mm the Baader Vario 60mm, I can still go back to this if I need to.

alan

[alan potts]

The focal length is 242mm so maybe 8mm is making a difference, I need to see if that can be changed, have to say I pressed calulate and expected it to get it correct but see it only handles the pixels, still its only 2019. This little scope does give a very sharp picture, I had to reduce the camera gain with the moon being out as it was taking in too much light to see stars apart from Regulus and you wouldn't try to use that to guide.

Again thanks for the response, really quite touching. BTW if I try EQmod don't go away, I'm sure there will be something I mess up.

Alan

[Laurin Dave]

Hi Alan..   I wouldn’t have thought that 8mm out of 250mm would cause the issue..  although worth changing to make sure.  If you do go down the Eqmod route I found the LightVortexAstronomy tutorial very helpful.  hope you get it sorted. 

Dave

 

 

[alan potts]

5 minutes ago, Laurin Dave said:

Hi Alan..   I wouldn’t have thought that 8mm out of 250mm would cause the issue..  although worth changing to make sure.  If you do go down the Eqmod route I found the LightVortexAstronomy tutorial very helpful.  hope you get it sorted. 

Dave

 

 

Hi Dave,

I will go down this road but as said want to get this working first, I just feel it will help me, I'm not the best where IT is concerned, I have made a note of this Light Vortex. I can't understand why I found normal photography so easy, no matter what I did, 40 years practice maybe.

Alan

[alacant]

12 hours ago, alan potts said:

guiding will not work for me

Hi Alan

I was like that when I first started. The breakthrough came when I discovered an astro club locally. It is so much easier to watch someone else do it and/or fix it for you the first few times. Here in Spain it's not so much a formal club, rather a chance to share ideas, equipment and of course a few beers. 

Recommended!

[newbie alert]

Hi Alan, first thing is to make sure the guide cam is focused properly..soft focus is fine as in recommended by Steve Richards,  but if it's not you could be seeing hot pixels..good test is to slightly slew the scope while looping..if the stars don't move then they're not stars..

2nd thing id do is on calibration take the slack out of the gears, press north on the onscreen handset.. 

One last thing, are you calibrating on the equator,  DEC 0?

[alan potts]

32 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

Hi Alan, first thing is to make sure the guide cam is focused properly..soft focus is fine as in recommended by Steve Richards,  but if it's not you could be seeing hot pixels..good test is to slightly slew the scope while looping..if the stars don't move then they're not stars..

2nd thing id do is on calibration take the slack out of the gears, press north on the onscreen handset.. 

One last thing, are you calibrating on the equator,  DEC 0?

Many thanks, I have done everything you suggested before, though never heard soft focus before, this is sharp and they are all stars.  I, as said moved a few times around the equator or close too, and slack was removed not that there is much now I spent 2 hours on it the other day.

Alan

[alan potts]

53 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi Alan

I was like that when I first started. The breakthrough came when I discovered an astro club locally. It is so much easier to watch someone else do it and/or fix it for you the first few times. Here in Spain it's not so much a formal club, rather a chance to share ideas, equipment and of course a few beers. 

Recommended!

There is no one within a hundred miles of me that I know of, sooner keep it that out here.

Alan

[spillage]

When using PHD2 having a pinpoint focus on stars is not necessary and can sometimes cause issues. My stars look like marshmallow but guiding is fine. I may be wrong as with all this weather I forget how things work, but when opening phd2 on my pc I thought that eqmod also starts up. Alan I can understand your thoughts on just focusing on the one program but it might actually be easier just to dive in and set everything up in one go. I would loose the st4 connection and use usb to the computer. Eqmod is easy enough to set up and I have never touched it since. You can set up quite a few things in eqmod but near enough out of the box it should work with minimum input. I know Carole had a nightmare setting up platesolving in APT but the folks on here got her up and running so it is possible.

[gajjer]

Hi Dave

I'm like you. Start simple and grow as you feel you have a grip on things. I see you have had a lot of suggestions. My money is still with the messages not getting through.

If I were you, having spent that amount, I would stand back and look again at the situation. We get precious few nights that we can do this stuff, you don't want to be wasting good nights cursing at your set-up.

Buy yourself a Lynx Astro FTDI EQDIR USB Adapter as suggested right at the beginning of the thread. It will be £34 well spent.

Hope you get this sorted, you'll love it when you do.

cheers

gaj

[alan potts]

24 minutes ago, spillage said:

When using PHD2 having a pinpoint focus on stars is not necessary and can sometimes cause issues. My stars look like marshmallow but guiding is fine. I may be wrong as with all this weather I forget how things work, but when opening phd2 on my pc I thought that eqmod also starts up. Alan I can understand your thoughts on just focusing on the one program but it might actually be easier just to dive in and set everything up in one go. I would loose the st4 connection and use usb to the computer. Eqmod is easy enough to set up and I have never touched it since. You can set up quite a few things in eqmod but near enough out of the box it should work with minimum input. I know Carole had a nightmare setting up platesolving in APT but the folks on here got her up and running so it is possible.

I just like to do one thing at a time so I understand what happenning, I will go with EQmod soon trust me, I have all the Lynx cables for everything, even power. I have to say why sell ED guidescopes which I bought for quality if this is not important, it never lost the star so I don't really see this as an issue, I can always de-focus a bit. I can always go back to another scope I have 5 in all

Alan.

[alan potts]

16 minutes ago, gajjer said:

Hi Dave

I'm like you. Start simple and grow as you feel you have a grip on things. I see you have had a lot of suggestions. My money is still with the messages not getting through.

If I were you, having spent that amount, I would stand back and look again at the situation. We get precious few nights that we can do this stuff, you don't want to be wasting good nights cursing at your set-up.

Buy yourself a Lynx Astro FTDI EQDIR USB Adapter as suggested right at the beginning of the thread. It will be £34 well spent.

Hope you get this sorted, you'll love it when you do.

cheers

gaj

Think my money's on that too. It looks clear for tonight so I can try again.

Alan

[alan potts]

An update.

Tested the setup and cleaned all contacts on the cable and mount and located them firmly in place. Tested the movement , NSE&W and all moved the mount, I am not sure they did before though.

Also reset the F/L to 242mm and made a dark library, really getting clever now, need to lay down.  Weather looks OK to try later but maybe that's it for a couple of days.

Alan

[Thalestris24]

Hi Alan

I have the feeling that something fundamental is wrong with your setup. If, for example, your st4 connection isn't working, you'll spend forever getting nowhere. That's one reason pulse guiding is much better... Anyway, one way to check it is using the manual guide facility in PHD2. You can do that during the day using large pulses via the manual guide controls under Tools. Obviously everything has to be connected and the mount has to be tracking otherwise nothing will happen! I just tested it with my eq3 pro with a qhy5l-ii guide cam.

Settings were:

My qhy5l-ii has a quirk whereby it won't work in ST4 unless its set to 8-bit i.e. not 12 bit:

So qhy5l-ii 12-bit unchecked.

I've no idea whether the 8-bit / 12-bit setting affects ST4 with any other cameras. 

I've connected equipment in phd2 viz:

Then set up the Manual Guide controls:

(The dither stuff doesn't come into it)

Provided the mount is tracking and guide camera/ST4 is working then pressing any of North/South/East/West sends a 5000ms (5 second) pulse to move either the RA or DEC motor. It doesn't require a star or for the guide cam to be looping so can be used to test in the day. It doesn't move the mount by much - it's just manual guide corrections. But... You should be able to hear the motor gears chugging for the 5 sec pulse duration. If it sounds (sic) like everything is working then try again after dark on a suitable star. Always select a star that gives a good signal with a ~2 sec exposure but without saturating. If it does seem to be working then try the star cross test, also under Tools.

There is a useful PHD2 troubleshooting guide: https://openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Trouble_shooting.htm

Hope that helps

Louise

 

 

[ollypenrice]

Unless I've missed it (and I may have done) nobody has talked about the setting of the mount's guide speed. On our EQ sixes I set this in the handset at 0.5x sidereal. (I don't know what happens if you don't use this setting with the Skywatcher software because that value always worked for me. However, with the Mesus I sometimes forget to turn the guide speed from 'Jog' - which is a slewing speed for framing up - to 'Slow Guide' and when I do this it won't calibrate. You might expect it to overshoot on calibration but it doesn't seem to do that, it just doesn't do anything.) So for the sake of it just check your guide speed in the handset.

It's always possible that your mount's motherboard has a fault at the ST4 socket, I suppose. Motherbopards are easy to change but annoyingly expensive given that they cost next to nothing at the factory gate.

I use the system you're trying to use. Lodestar, ST4 cable, PHD2, set to On Camera. The Lodestar drivers are already loaded in PHD2 and are named SXV, from memory. It works very well, the only hassle coming from the abominably inappropriate choice of ST4 cable spec on the Mk1 Lodestar. Those little cables have been a pest on occasion. I have an alloy strip taped to the camera and sticking out behind it. I tape the cable to that for support. TS make a plastic cable support for this known problem.

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling PHD2? But then again you've tried more than one PC if I have this right so I don't think this would do much good.

Olly

[alan potts]

1 hour ago, Thalestris24 said:

Hi Alan

I have the feeling that something fundamental is wrong with your setup. If, for example, your st4 connection isn't working, you'll spend forever getting nowhere. That's one reason pulse guiding is much better... Anyway, one way to check it is using the manual guide facility in PHD2. You can do that during the day using large pulses via the manual guide controls under Tools. Obviously everything has to be connected and the mount has to be tracking otherwise nothing will happen! I just tested it with my eq3 pro with a qhy5l-ii guide cam.

Settings were:

My qhy5l-ii has a quirk whereby it won't work in ST4 unless its set to 8-bit i.e. not 12 bit:

So qhy5l-ii 12-bit unchecked.

I've no idea whether the 8-bit / 12-bit setting affects ST4 with any other cameras. 

I've connected equipment in phd2 viz:

Then set up the Manual Guide controls:

(The dither stuff doesn't come into it)

Provided the mount is tracking and guide camera/ST4 is working then pressing any of North/South/East/West sends a 5000ms (5 second) pulse to move either the RA or DEC motor. It doesn't require a star or for the guide cam to be looping so can be used to test in the day. It doesn't move the mount by much - it's just manual guide corrections. But... You should be able to hear the motor gears chugging for the 5 sec pulse duration. If it sounds (sic) like everything is working then try again after dark on a suitable star. Always select a star that gives a good signal with a ~2 sec exposure but without saturating. If it does seem to be working then try the star cross test, also under Tools.

There is a useful PHD2 troubleshooting guide: https://openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Trouble_shooting.htm

Hope that helps

Louise

 

 

I guess you missed my update the post before. I agree there is something  very wrong and I feel it is cable yet again, these things must be a constant nightmare, can't believe I am the only one that had had 3 duff ones. Lousie manual mount movement is now workinh, I don't think it was last night but I'm not totally sure, I only brushed over this section in the program and wasn't paying attention but I don't think anything happened when I did briefly press North, now it moves obviously.  I believe the mount is OK as I had a part Cal with a faulty loadstar camera last year, the wheels came off when it got to Dec.

Alan

[alan potts]

32 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Unless I've missed it (and I may have done) nobody has talked about the setting of the mount's guide speed. On our EQ sixes I set this in the handset at 0.5x sidereal. (I don't know what happens if you don't use this setting with the Skywatcher software because that value always worked for me. However, with the Mesus I sometimes forget to turn the guide speed from 'Jog' - which is a slewing speed for framing up - to 'Slow Guide' and when I do this it won't calibrate. You might expect it to overshoot on calibration but it doesn't seem to do that, it just doesn't do anything.) So for the sake of it just check your guide speed in the handset.

It's always possible that your mount's motherboard has a fault at the ST4 socket, I suppose. Motherbopards are easy to change but annoyingly expensive given that they cost next to nothing at the factory gate.

I use the system you're trying to use. Lodestar, ST4 cable, PHD2, set to On Camera. The Lodestar drivers are already loaded in PHD2 and are named SXV, from memory. It works very well, the only hassle coming from the abominably inappropriate choice of ST4 cable spec on the Mk1 Lodestar. Those little cables have been a pest on occasion. I have an alloy strip taped to the camera and sticking out behind it. I tape the cable to that for support. TS make a plastic cable support for this known problem.

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling PHD2? But then again you've tried more than one PC if I have this right so I don't think this would do much good.

Olly

All is set as you say Olly, I feel it was cable yet again, but not totally sure and the weather seems to have taken a turn in the last hours or so. I have actually used 3 laptops on the samr mount over the last two years, I do have one more that I don't take outside at the moment. However I am going desktop here in my bar and upping to 16 gig ram so that frees this thinkpad up.

Alan

[Thalestris24]

8 minutes ago, alan potts said:

I guess you missed my update the post before. I agree there is something  very wrong and I feel it is cable yet again, these things must be a constant nightmare, can't believe I am the only one that had had 3 duff ones. Lousie manual mount movement is now workinh, I don't think it was last night but I'm not totally sure, I only brushed over this section in the program and wasn't paying attention but I don't think anything happened when I did briefly press North, now it moves obviously.  I believe the mount is OK as I had a part Cal with a faulty loadstar camera last year, the wheels came off when it got to Dec.

Alan

I might have... The thing about the PHD2 Manual Guide movement is that a) it tests your ST4 cable and connection but b) the movements aren't noticeable unless you have a star selected and you can see the corrections on-screen. But if you're confident that the manual guide movements are as expected then you should be able to calibrate and then guide. The dark library you've made should help

Louise

[FaDG]

44 minutes ago, alan potts said:

I believe the mount is OK as I had a part Cal with a faulty loadstar camera last year, the wheels came off when it got to Dec.

Aha, but then it might be easy! This info was missing yesterday and you didn't react to my assumption that RA wasn't calibrating! 

So, if you confirm that RA calibration succeeds, I see one of two possibilities:

- The ST4 cable is faulty: a known issue is that sometimes dec connection is miswired

- YOU HAVE MASSIVE BACKLASH IN DEC. 

Please, try this: BEFORE starting calibration, move your mount northwards with the keypad. Calibration only performs a 'Dec north' move, but if you have backlash it may be fooled.  So, by preloading the Gear in the north direction you remove the issue in this phase. 

You'll still have it when guiding, but if it becomes a nuisance, you can offset the Polar Alignment slightly in order to have a small drift and force Dec corrections in one direction only. 

Hope it helps. 

Fabio 

PS: upon better reading, i see you wrote "last year"... so did you manager RA again? 

[alan potts]

22 minutes ago, Thalestris24 said:

I might have... The thing about the PHD2 Manual Guide movement is that a) it tests your ST4 cable and connection but b) the movements aren't noticeable unless you have a star selected and you can see the corrections on-screen. But if you're confident that the manual guide movements are as expected then you should be able to calibrate and then guide. The dark library you've made should help

Louise

Agreed about movements, I selected sky position in the menu and looked at the numbers change, you can also hear the mount. It's very quiet here and I didn't hear anything different last night which I am fairly sure I would as I could earlier on when I tested it.The reason I may not have seen anything was at the time last night I had the Live View from APT on screen, silly error. Looks bad now for a run tonight, but you never know.

 

Alan

[alan potts]

2 minutes ago, FaDG said:

Aha, but then it might be easy! This info was missing yesterday and you didn't react to my assumption that RA wasn't calibrating! 

So, if you confirm that RA calibration succeeds, I see one of two possibilities:

- The ST4 cable is faulty: a known issue is that sometimes dec connection is miswired

- YOU HAVE MASSIVE BACKLASH IN DEC. 

Please, try this: BEFORE starting calibration, move your mount northwards with the keypad. Calibration only performs a 'Dec north' move, but if you have backlash it may be fooled.  So, by preloading the Gear in the north direction you remove the issue in this phase. 

You'll still have it when guiding, but if it becomes a nuisance, you can offset the Polar Alignment slightly in order to have a small drift and force Dec corrections in one direction only. 

Hope it helps. 

Fabio 

 

Sorry I must have missed you Fabio, rather a lot of replies to go through. All the info is ther but there are a lot of posts now, I only thought to add it later, it was a years ago. I always set up like you say so I don't believe it is that backlash issue, I also spent 2 hours taking all play out a few days ago, it is many times better than it was. I have 3 ST4 cables so I will try a different one if it don't start this time, Personally I feel it was cable contacts not making contact.

Alan