I've wasted 3 great nights, but I'm extremely happy...

[R26 oldtimer]

...because finally, I'm guiding!!!

Crappy subs due to crappy framing and crappy focusing plus some fiddling to get APT talking to phd2 and my azeq5 through my diy wifi adapter but.... 30min subs (yeahh 30mins as 1800sec) show less trail than my best 90sec subs ever did!!!!

I consider that as moving up to stage 2 of AP. Next thing is dithering (dither or die?), and to modify my dslr to take full advantage of the newly aquired optolong L-enhance.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Yes I had quite a few night trying to get to grips with guiding and not getting any worthwhile subs. But for sure it cannot be considered as wasted I am sure we all have been through something similar. I find it hard to believe anyone has clicked on PHD and guided to perfection just like that.

So I think 3 nights fiddling about is not bad at all.

Steve 

[carastro]

👍

[eshy76]

Well done! I remember taking my first steps into guiding with the Lacerta MGen standalone guider...which was much easier than subsequently getting into PHD2!

It's worth the investment though - I'm sure your first guided images will show the jump in quality straight away!

And, yes - dither! APT makes it easy - you'll find a little checkbox somewhere in the Guide dialog and you can also choose to dither every x subs - dithering every frame is time consuming (guiding has to settle down each time), I tend to dither every 3 subs if I'm taking a stack of above 40 subs. Below that, I dither every 2 subs. That's just me though, I'm sure everyone has their own approach.