Guiding with Astroart

[Helen]

Its been another frustrating night . I'm having guiding problems again. Why is it that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't :scratch: . The last three or four nights have been pretty disastrous, with stars trailing badly (in fact I think its better when not guiding).

The stars are elongated roughly along the x-axis.

I wonder if anyone can help? Its getting rather discouraging (and I'm wasting precious clear nights faffing around!)

I'm using astroart, an SXVFH9 with SXguidecam, a c8 main and zs66 guidescope

- I identify a guide star, draw the box, click guide and then calibrate. On a couple of occasions the software has come up with an error message that says the pixel per second speed is less than 0.5. Is this a problem with the mount connection or something?

- the calibration seems to come up with different figures every time I do it - is this reasonable?

- if I'm using the guide cam in a diagonal on a refractor do I need to switch the x/y or invert either x or y? or will the calibration sort this out?

- I was using the bad seeing command (the guide star has jumped about a bit on previouis nights). I tried both tonight as seeing was better, but neither made any difference.

- astroart wouldn't let me keep the guide monitoring box open and let me start a sequence - is this normal?

- astroart seemed to work really slowly tonight - could a time lag be part of the problem?

-if the control is direct from the camera to the autoguider port how should I tell astroart this? (its set up for SXV relay, which cover this) I also have telescope control via the plug in to the bottom of the handset, could this cause conflict? the set up does allow me to centre objects, so something is communicating effectively!

Sorry for the long list, but maybe something will give someone a clue about what's going wrong :scratch: I sure hope so!

Any help very gratefully received

Thanks

Helen

[Merlin66]

Its been another frustrating night . I'm having guiding problems again. Why is it that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't :scratch: . The last three or four nights have been pretty disastrous, with stars trailing badly (in fact I think its better when not guiding).

The stars are elongated roughly along the x-axis.

I wonder if anyone can help? Its getting rather discouraging (and I'm wasting precious clear nights faffing around!)

I'm using astroart, an SXVFH9 with SXguidecam, a c8 main and zs66 guidescope

Which version of AstroArt are you using? AA4.3??

- I identify a guide star, draw the box, click guide and then calibrate. On a couple of occasions the software has come up with an error message that says the pixel per second speed is less than 0.5. Is this a problem with the mount connection or something?

The Telescope speed ( see page 100 of the AA manual) should be set to give a reasonable pixel/ sec speed; they suggest x0.5 siderial)

- the calibration seems to come up with different figures every time I do it - is this reasonable?

- if I'm using the guide cam in a diagonal on a refractor do I need to switch the x/y or invert either x or y? or will the calibration sort this out?

The calibration should sort this

- I was using the bad seeing command (the guide star has jumped about a bit on previouis nights). I tried both tonight as seeing was better, but neither made any difference.

- astroart wouldn't let me keep the guide monitoring box open and let me start a sequence - is this normal?

Don't know?? What guide statistics do you get in the Guide window??

- astroart seemed to work really slowly tonight - could a time lag be part of the problem?

-if the control is direct from the camera to the autoguider port how should I tell astroart this? (its set up for SXV relay, which cover this) I also have telescope control via the plug in to the bottom of the handset, could this cause conflict? the set up does allow me to centre objects, so something is communicating effectively!

Page 99 of the maual shows the various confirgurations.... which one represents your set-up?

Usually you don't need a separate guide connection ( I only use either an LX200 or the HEQ5Pro, your's may be different)

If I use say the ST-4 for guiding, it's done outside AA4.

Sorry for the long list, but maybe something will give someone a clue about what's going wrong :scratch: I sure hope so!

Any help very gratefully received

Thanks

Helen

[Helen]

Thanks m66 - off to find the manual!

Helen