DMK21 and Guiding with PHD

[Ant]

I am at an absolute loss.

Three months ago everything was fine. I could get away with 8 or 10 minute subs, didn't try any higher but I have no real reason to doubt that it would have gone on longer.

Then at Christmas I got a Focal Reducer, I tried using that with the ED80 - and it all went a bit wrong. Kept getting the message "not enough movement in RA" -got lots of advice on what was causing it and now that problem is sorted.

Then I found that PHD crashed everytime I tried to get it to guide with the DMK. Sometimes it would complete the calibration and sometimes it would.

At this point I've changed nothing on the hardware or software side.

I decide to buy a new HDD, hoping that a clean install might help. I update to the newest drivers for the DMK (newer than the one that I had before), I update (eventually) to the newest version of PHD v1.10.

PHD will talk to the mount - and I can move the mount around using the little button on the screen.

PHD will talk to the DMK, I can centre stars and focus etc.

The DMK works flawlessly (now) with the IC Capture software, giving 60Fps if the exposure allows...

But as soon as I click on a star in PHD, click STOP, and then guide nothing happens.

Thinking about it the only hardware change that I have made is adding a filter into the image train of the DMK - but that shouldn't really affect anything.

Please somebody help...

I'm losing what little hair I have left.

Ant

[Ant]

No one with any idea's on what may have gone wrong?

I've emailed Craig at Stark-Labs for advice...

But anything else that I could try would be great!

Ant

[Dangerous-Dave]

I use the DMK21AU04 for guiding and sometimes find it a bit finnicky too.

"But as soon as I click on a star in PHD, click STOP, and then guide nothing happens."

Try stop, then click on the star, then guide. Seriously!

Any idea how to set the exposure length from PHD? I've tried mucking with the cam dialog but the exposure always looks the same length to me (admittedly it works fine, but it does cut down my range of guide stars). No such issues in IC capture of course, works a treat,

[Reggie]

Just spotted this post, thought it was DMK related, looking at what dave is saying is correct, do it quick too, as soon as you click stop, click on the star (so the box appears) then immediately click the guide button. If PHD doesn't ahve a box around the star it has no idea what to guide on.