More PHD issues and wasted night

[scotty38]

I just tried setting up a new profile and it keeps failing taking the dark library frames at the same place, on the first frame at 4.5 seconds and the camera seems to be disconnected. Swapped out the cable and same issue. It's conencted via the USB hub on my 294mc camera so just going to try direct from the laptop.

13:20:40.602 00.000 2384 Capture dark frame 5/5 exp=4000
13:20:44.842 04.240 2384 dark frame stats: bpp 16 min 1296 max 12640 filtmin 2160 filtmax 2584
13:20:44.852 00.010 2384 mean = 2326  median(approx) = 2304
13:20:44.852 00.000 2384 histo[0..63] 0 0 0 0 0 12 157 2571 424907 781735 17932 1402 67 9 2 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13:20:44.852 00.000 2384 histo[64..127] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13:20:44.852 00.000 2384 histo[128..191] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13:20:44.852 00.000 2384 histo[192..255] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
13:20:44.862 00.010 2384 Capture dark frame 1/5 exp=4500
13:21:04.382 19.520 2384 Alert: After 16.0 sec the camera has not completed a 1.0 sec exposure, so it has been disconnected to prevent other problems. If you think the hardware is working correctly, you can increase the timeout period on the Camera tab of the Advanced Settings Dialog.
PHD will make several attempts to re-connect the camera.
13:21:04.602 00.220 2384 Try camera reconnect, now = 1616332864
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 gear_dialog: ReconnectCamera
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 gear_dialog: DoConnectCamera [ASI Camera (1) (ASCOM)]
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 Status Line: Connecting to Camera ...
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 GetString("/profile/3/cam_hash/8b703f25/whichCamera", "") returns ""
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 Connecting to camera [ASI Camera (1) (ASCOM)] id = []
13:21:04.602 00.000 2384 Create ASCOM Camera: choice 'ASI Camera (1) (ASCOM)' progid ASCOM.ASICamera2.Camera
13:21:05.422 00.820 2384 setting camera Name = ZWO ASI120MM Mini (ASCOM)
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 ASCOM camera: MaxBinning is 2
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 ASCOM camera: has cooler
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 ASCOM Camera: set binning = 1
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 GetDouble("/profile/3/camera/pixelsize", 0.000000) returns 3.750000
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 DoConnectCamera: reconnecting=1 warningIssued=0 lastCam=[ASI Camera (1) (ASCOM)] scaleRatio=1.000
13:21:05.422 00.000 2384 Connected Camera: ZWO ASI120MM Mini (ASCOM)

[Skipper Billy]

You might find the second item down on this page helpful.....

https://www.davidbanksastro.com/how-to

[scotty38]

Thanks Billy will have a look but what I forgot to say was I changed the driver PHD2 was using. I selected "ASCOM Camera (1)" which brings up a ZWO config screen and that was the one failing. When I choose "ZWO ASI" as my camera the only option I get is to pick between my 120 or 294 but that has worked and has built a dark library. This is the driver I was using previously.....

[scotty38]

Another thing I just found by playing around and although I accept this will have no bearing on the dark library/driver issue but when balancing and just turning on the RA axis the counterweight makes no real difference throught most of its travel. Right at the end and it's heavier than the scope side and vice-versa with weight right up to the mount but for most of the travel maybe a third either side of centre not much difference. Does this mean my RA bearing may be too tight and could be a cause of the guding issues?

It's a new mount by the way, less than a few month's old.

Edited March 21, 2021 by scotty38

[michael8554]

Never made much sense of the DebugLog, could you post the GuideLog too ?

Michael

[scotty38]

Thanks for looking and here you go. Same as before you should probably ignore the latter half somewhat where I started messing with focus.

 

PHD2_GuideLog_2021-03-20_195954.txt

Edited March 21, 2021 by scotty38

[michael8554]

Hi Scotty

From the GuideLog:

Guide speeds are very low,  "RA Guide Speed = 1.5 a-s/s, Dec Guide Speed = 1.5 a-s/s"

Normal range is 8 arcsecs/sec (0.5X or 50%) to 15 arcsecs/sec (1.0X or 100%).

In your first guiding session, RA and Dec are whizzing off at equal rates in opposite directions.

Suggesting that in your last Cal on the 17th, Dec and RA were moving in roughly the same direction, instead of at 90 degrees to each other.

Hence the "Last Cal Issue = Orthogonality" error message from the last Cal ?

It is pointless trying to guide until you get a good Calibration

Camera output at 1 second and 1.5 second exposure was very choppy, with many "Star Lost" messages, try guiding at 2 seconds to reduce "Chasing the Seeing".

Guidecam focus was poor, HFD 4 to 5.

Use the Star Profile window in PHD2 to get that down to 3 to 4.

So my suggestions:

Increase Guide Rate and Exposure time, and fine-tune focus.

Nudge Dec north until you see the star move before Cal - to take up any Dec Backlash.

Read this from the PHD2 guys:

https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-best-practices/

Michael

 

 

[scotty38]

Thanks Michael, I will do all of that as suggested, extremely useful, thanks again!...

 

[scotty38]

I had a play between clouds and got PHD2 calibrated and once done guiding was immediate although clouds messed things up so it never ran long enough to see how well it was working.

Thanks again for all the help as I'd not realised there was a separate calibration to be done. Fingers crossed this is all that was needed....