Help with PHD2

[kman42]

42 minutes ago, Merlin66 said:

See my reply above.....

OK, so I can see now how PHD2 would be able to get RELATIVE  position from EQMod. But if I walk through the steps on a night of astro:

1. I set up the tripod with a rough polar alignment

2. I load PHD2/EQMod, which has my Lat and Long saved 

2. I point roughly towards the meridian & equator, and do a calibration

3. I open the Drift alignment tool, and it tells me I am currently pointing XX RA and XX DEC. How did it work this out? At no point have I given any kind of information to PHD2 or EQMod about where I am pointed. 

I feel like I'm missing some crucial part of the set up, which I hope will be revealed by digging into the above question

[michael8554]

As previously mentioned, once you have Star Aligned, the mount will know where it is in RA and Dec. 

So you've missed out step 2A, Star Align the Mount. 

What is  surfacing is whether your Stepper Motor mod has Encoders, we've all assumed it does,  because without them you don't have Goto. 

In that case forget Step 2A and getting mount RA and Dec reported, all you will be able to do is star-hop to targets you want to guide on. 

Michael 

[spillage]

When using Eqmod you would have unparked the mount. Eqmod then assumes your mount is pointing to the home position and will use this as the ref point. PHD will use Eqmod to get the co-ordinates.

If you do not remove the guide scope from the telescope you should not really need to calibate.

I take it you are imaging but not sure what software you are using for this.

I would set up and roughly polar align using the polar scope and start up/connect all your software.

Run PHD drift alignment. Calibrate if needed/wanted.

Put the mount back to home. Platesolve and then move onto your target.

Not sure if being south of the equator make much difference.

[kman42]

Ahah! So, I was missing a step - set the EQMod home position. The puzzle falls into place. Thanks!