PHD2 image lost?

[OJ87]

Hi everyone,

As clear nights comes more in summer, I decided to try auto guiding using phd2 and my Touptek mono guiding came. This cam has no live view, so focusing was a painful process, after PHD started and selecting the star it begins to autoguid. After about 6~10 exposures I noticed phd get a black image and then it tells me the star is lost? same problem with different exposures time. (1-7secs). What could be the problem? I tried restarting and reinstall the software and updating it. 

Thanks,

[Freddie]

Did you complete calibration? You don’t mention it.

[carastro]

Yes it sounds to me that this is a calbration failure as that is what it says when calibration fails. 

Are you sure it was actually guiding or just trying to calibrate? 

I don't use PHD2,  I use PHD1, but I think this is the same in both.  When calibrating, the cross hairs are yellow broken lines.  When actually guiding the cross hairs are solid green lines.  Also without live view I am not sure how you can select a star.  Is this a suitable camera for guiding?  

Carole 

Edited July 14, 2019 by carastro

[alacant]

Hi

Live view is available using ToupView which may make initial focus easier but...

...PHD2 doesn't use live view, it takes images at given intervals. To focus using PHD2, choose say, 0.5s exposures, loop and rack the focuser (or the camera) in and out until you see stars.

Touptek support was added only recently. Make sure you have the latest development release of PHD2. .If that fails, post a link to the logs.

Cheers, good luck and HTH

Edited July 14, 2019 by alacant

[michael8554]

You spent a lot of time getting focus, which suggests you have a solid connection to PHD2 that is lasting for more than 6 to 10 exposures.? 

Did you set up PHD2 using the New Profile Wizard.? 

PHD2 takes your guide pixel size and focal length and then calculates a Step Size for Calibration. 

Have you previously Calibrated PHD2? 

If not , when you press the guide button, PHD2 will start to Calibrate. 

It will move North 10 to 15 steps, but if you have the wrong values entered in the Wizard, it may move the star out of the box and give you the Star Lost message. 

Michael 

[OJ87]

Hi everyone, 

Thanks for your answers,

 

10 hours ago, Freddie said:

Did you complete calibration? You don’t mention it.

 

 

This does happens also during calibrating, the image comes complete black, but sometimes it Calibrate before this happens,  sometimes it stop it and tells me that exposure time is long and it phd2 must be stopped to prevent other problems.

 

9 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi

Live view is available using ToupView which may make initial focus easier but...

...PHD2 doesn't use live view, it takes images at given intervals. To focus using PHD2, choose say, 0.5s exposures, loop and rack the focuser (or the camera) in and out until you see stars.

Touptek support was added only recently. Make sure you have the latest development release of PHD2. .If that fails, post a link to the logs.

Cheers, good luck and HTH

I use Touptek to focus ( I wasn't aware there is a liveview function there, I have to check it out again. I believe it's a camera driver problem with phd2. Wanted to check if anyone else had the same what I has here

2 hours ago, michael8554 said:

You spent a lot of time getting focus, which suggests you have a solid connection to PHD2 that is lasting for more than 6 to 10 exposures.? 

Did you set up PHD2 using the New Profile Wizard.? 

PHD2 takes your guide pixel size and focal length and then calculates a Step Size for Calibration. 

Have you previously Calibrated PHD2? 

If not , when you press the guide button, PHD2 will start to Calibrate. 

It will move North 10 to 15 steps, but if you have the wrong values entered in the Wizard, it may move the star out of the box and give you the Star Lost message. 

Michael 

As I mentioned above: I use Touptek view to focus.

PHD could once calibrate, but in really big steps: 2500, I checked all other setting are correct. 

The problem is when this "black/blank image" comes out of nowhere and stay till next exposure finish then the guiding star will be in the same place. 

Best regards, 

[michael8554]

So if you connect to PHD2, start exposing but DON'T guide, at times the image goes black for one exposure.? 

Then yes, the latest PHD2 re,lease may cure this, or your USB connection may not have enough power, or is shared with a bandwidth hungry device.? 

Second problem, what pixel size and focal length did you enter that gave a 2500 step size? 

Michael 

[OJ87]

7 hours ago, michael8554 said:

So if you connect to PHD2, start exposing but DON'T guide, at times the image goes black for one exposure.? 

Then yes, the latest PHD2 re,lease may cure this, or your USB connection may not have enough power, or is shared with a bandwidth hungry device.? 

Second problem, what pixel size and focal length did you enter that gave a 2500 step size? 

Michael 

Hi Michael, 

Exactly, that's the problem... Random completely black image come without any stars after 5~15 good  images, the phd 2 stop guiding because star lost then the next exposure come again so it start guiding  for 5~15 exposures until next black image.

I have the last PHD2 version 2.6.6 , or there's a newer beta version?

Maybe it's  a USB problem? I use USB hub ( not the best quality) and share it with dslr  so the images come directly to my laptop. I'm using a best quality 20m-USB cable with signal booster every 5m. Picture downloading speed is similar as the original USB cable. I think the USB power supply is definitively lower , but in this case the camera wouldn't run at all I guess. 

Focal length is 60mm same as my guiding scope, pixel size is 3,75. I'm pretty sure there is something wrong here also, but those black images where more irritating.

Best regards,

Alan

[alacant]

3 minutes ago, OJ87 said:

PHD2 version 2.6.6 , or there's a newer beta version?

 

Hi

There are more recent versions. Always worth a try when things are not working. Please see this post.

Cheers

Edited July 15, 2019 by alacant

[OJ87]

8 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi

There are more recent versions. Always worth a try when things are not working. Please see this post.

Cheers

Thank you alacant, I'll try the latest development version, I hope it could help.

 

Best regards, 

[alacant]

24 minutes ago, OJ87 said:

I hope it could help.

If not, post the logs to the developers. It will not be long before you get a fix.

Cheers

[michael8554]

Update to the latest PHD2 dev version.

Try connecting the camera with one short non-active USB cable to the same port on the computer. 

You can do that during the day, you don't have to get a focused correctly exposed image, just see if you get any black images amongst the white ones. 

1 hour ago, OJ87 said:

Focal length is 60mm same as my guiding scope

 Hmm. Quattro focal length is 1000mm, guidescope aperture might be 60mm, but focal length maybe 200mm? That's what you put into PHD2. 

Michael 

Edited July 15, 2019 by michael8554

[OJ87]

45 minutes ago, michael8554 said:

Update to the latest PHD2 dev version.

Try connecting the camera with one short non-active USB cable to the same port on the computer. 

You can do that during the day, you don't have to get a focused correctly exposed image, just see if you get any black images amongst the white ones. 

 Hmm. Quattro focal length is 1000mm, guidescope aperture might be 60mm, but focal length maybe 200mm? That's what you put into PHD2. 

Michael 

Hi Michael,

60mm is the focal length of my guiding scope. 

My 10" Quattro is 1000mm, but I always thought I have to put the focal length of guiding scope, but the imaging scope, right?

[OJ87]

1 hour ago, alacant said:

If not, post the logs to the developers. It will not be long before you get a fix.

Cheers

Thanks for the link, very useful one, I see some of my past problems are solved here 😂. 

I'll report it if it c continues to come.

 

[michael8554]

14 minutes ago, OJ87 said:

60mm is the focal length of my guiding scope. 

Are you absolutely sure about that.?  I've never seen such a short focal length guidescope before, loads of 60mm aperture ones . But yes, you put the guidescope FL into PHD2. 

That would present quite a challenge for PHD2, with such a huge difference in guiding and imaging image scales. 

Michael 

 

 

 

[gajjer]

I think that 60mm would be the diameter. Can you tell us the make/model of the guide scope?

cheers

gaj 

[OJ87]

2 hours ago, michael8554 said:

Are you absolutely sure about that.?  I've never seen such a short focal length guidescope before, loads of 60mm aperture ones . But yes, you put the guidescope FL into PHD2. 

That would present quite a challenge for PHD2, with such a huge difference in guiding and imaging image scales. 

Michael 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, gajjer said:

I think that 60mm would be the diameter. Can you tell us the make/model of the guide scope?

cheers

gaj 

Hi, you are absolutely right! It was the diameter, I always thought it was the focal length, here the link, it's in German, But I think You'll get what I mean..

https://www.astroshop.de/guidescopes/omegon-microspeed-guidescope-60mm/p,49756

the focal length is 240mm, it makes more sense now 😅.

Thank you guys, one problem is solved ,

Best regards, 

Edited July 15, 2019 by OJ87

[OJ87]

On 14/07/2019 at 14:05, alacant said:

Hi

Live view is available using ToupView which may make initial focus easier

 

The Programm in which I operate my camera is ToupSky ( it came with the CD). The program you mentioned Toupview, which is ( in description) for microscope camera. Does it works also with Astrocamera?

Best regards, 

[alacant]

1 hour ago, OJ87 said:

ToupSky

AFAIK it's the same; the one bundled with the cd. BUT...

I thought we were talking about getting the camera to work with PHD2. If so, the best way to focus is using a short exposure loop in PHD2. The advantage being you don't need to look at a star on a screen, rather the hfd value which is given in a large font that you can see at a distance specifically for focusing purposes:

https://openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Visualization.htm

HTH

 

[OJ87]

2 minutes ago, alacant said:

AFAIK it's the same; the one bundled with the cd. BUT...

I thought we were talking about getting the camera to work with PHD2. If so, the best way to focus is using a short exposure loop in PHD2. The advantage being you don't need to look at a star on a screen, rather the hfd value which is given in a large font that you can see at a distance specifically for focusing purposes:

https://openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Visualization.htm

HTH

 

Thank you for the link, 

The main subject was making the camera work with PHD, but I couldn't resist my self asking you about liveview, cause it's a lot (really a lot) of pain and time consuming to get some close focus on this came, even using short exposures.

Best regards, 

[michael8554]

IMO looking at a star image is never the best way to get optimum focus, the effect of those final trims just can't be seen. 

Software that gives you a relevant figure for focus is best, and HFD in PHD2 is as good as any. 

The Star Profile box can be undocked and enlarged so you can see the figure from afar. 

Michael