PHD2 Madness! Help!

[SiD the Turtle]

I am flummoxed with my guiding. I had PD2 working nicely but the last 3 or 4 times I've been out the guiding has been absolutely nuts. Here's my graph:

Note the scale is at +/-16 and it's still off the scale. If I try any long exposures it's a wobbly mess. No guiding seems better!

I thought my polar alignment was off so I have tried every type of alignment in PHD2 and can't get the graph to settle. I then even went out and bought a Polemaster and it seems to be spot on.

This is PHD2 through Astroberry, on HEQ5 and a Skywatcher 50ED guidescope. Nothing has changed as far as I can tell.

Any ideas where to start?

[teoria_del_big_bang]

What mount ?

Almost looks like something sticking then after a lot of correction pulses it moves with a jerk and over corrects getting worse every time it happens.

I am no expert but plenty on here very good with PHD2 but probably will need more info such as some Guidelogs and how you are guiding (i.e. ST4 or ASCOM/INDI).

Steve

[teoria_del_big_bang]

I have not used this yet but you can view your Guidelogs with this tool:

PHD LogViewer

Steve

[michael8554]

As Steve suggests , post your GuideLog.

Michael

[SiD the Turtle]

Cheers all, I think there was a much less sinister and much stupider reason. I can't think why this didn't come to mind before but I pointed the scope at Vega, which is nice and bright on my main scope and there was nothing on my guide cam. Then I played with the focus ring and realised it was massively, massively out of focus. What I thought were stars must be noise, or some pattern that appears when the focus is off. I refocused right down and now I'm looking at more like 2". Still not perfect, but the sky was very hazy last night.

Can't believe I missed that, no idea why the focus was off massively, but there it is.

[michael8554]

On the bottom line of the PHD2 screen grab there is "Dark" displayed in red.

This means you haven't created, or aren't using, a Dark Library for the guidecam, so locking onto hot pixels etc is a strong possibility........

Michael

[SiD the Turtle]

On 26/10/2020 at 17:00, michael8554 said:

On the bottom line of the PHD2 screen grab there is "Dark" displayed in red.

This means you haven't created, or aren't using, a Dark Library for the guidecam, so locking onto hot pixels etc is a strong possibility........

Michael

Thanks for that spot, I had a darks library but hadn't realised it wasn't using it. that helped too.

[alacant]

3 hours ago, SiD the Turtle said:

darks library

Hi

JTOL. You may want to simplify guiding by using EKOS' internal guider. With SEP, there is no need for dark frames and when used with the latest multistar algorithm, you should see a noticeable improvement in your images.

HTH

 

[SiD the Turtle]

I never even thought to try EKOS' internal guider, will give it a punt!

Edited November 2, 2020 by SiD the Turtle