Autoguiding, only starting and it is the bane of my life

[Philobr]

I cant get autoguiding to work, its like the telescope has a life of its own.
I've read through instructions online and looked at lots of tutorials on YouTube - Cuiv the lazy geek, Astroaddict, AstroOnBudget, Wido, AstroExploring.
Wrote down all the steps, going back over them again and and again to make sure I had everything I needed.

Downloaded and set up ASCOM, NINA, PHD2, Stellarium based on instructions from YouTube
Hooked the telescope, dslr camera, guide scope and guide camera up to the laptop.
Polar aligned the telescope, did a 3 star algnment, then plugged the telescope into the laptop
ASCOM, NINA and PHD2 recognized all the equipment

In NINA I set the target and slewed to it.
I was expecting the telescope to go left, but it went the opposite direction.

When I told it to go to another target it did the same thing, nothing was on target.

So I know what I have to do, but doing it and trying to fix it are the problem, havent a clue, hence the plea for help.
 

Gear:
Skywatcher EQM3pro mount, Skywatcher 150pds, Canon 100d, SV905C guide camera, SV165 guide scope, Baader MPCC Mark III coma corrector, Celestron X-Cel LX 3x Barlow

[carastro]

You haven't by any chance got the mount set to the wrong hemisphere?  Or ditto the guiding.  

Presumably it should know where you are by your co-ordinates.  

Carole 

[Elp]

As per Carole's query, and also I've experienced a similar thing with my azgti when doing gotos, it would tend to point to the ground. Make sure your location is correct to begin with. What sorted it for my azgti was when I start my asiair the first thing I do is tell the telescope to goto it's home position, if it's been physically setup correct it shouldn't move (or move very little). The home position is with the mount pointing north, telescope on top of the mount in line with the mount and also pointing north straight at polaris (or near enough). Then you can perform the polar alignment.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Elp

[IDM]

Are you getting these results by testing during the day and advancing the time is stellarium? I had the same issue when I advanced stellarium time, I think ascom used the computer clock not stellarium.

 

[newbie alert]

18 hours ago, Philobr said:

n NINA I set the target and slewed to it.
I was expecting the telescope to go left, but it went the opposite direction.

Depends on what side of the meridian the target is, so depends on what side of the pier the scope is

What don't you try platesolving? Just need a few things loaded up, ie ASTAP and some star catalogues

[newbie alert]

As your title says about autoguiding why not start on a easily found target like M42

With PhD you will need calibration before you can start, and running the guide assistant will help give a better guiding experience 

[rickwayne]

A gentle correction: "autoguiding" refers to the process of continually taking short exposures with a separate camera and using those to nudge the mount during the long exposure with the imaging camera. Has nothing to do with pointing to a target.

[edarter]

21 hours ago, Philobr said:

I cant get autoguiding to work, its like the telescope has a life of its own.
I've read through instructions online and looked at lots of tutorials on YouTube - Cuiv the lazy geek, Astroaddict, AstroOnBudget, Wido, AstroExploring.
Wrote down all the steps, going back over them again and and again to make sure I had everything I needed.

Downloaded and set up ASCOM, NINA, PHD2, Stellarium based on instructions from YouTube
Hooked the telescope, dslr camera, guide scope and guide camera up to the laptop.
Polar aligned the telescope, did a 3 star algnment, then plugged the telescope into the laptop
ASCOM, NINA and PHD2 recognized all the equipment

In NINA I set the target and slewed to it.
I was expecting the telescope to go left, but it went the opposite direction.

When I told it to go to another target it did the same thing, nothing was on target.

So I know what I have to do, but doing it and trying to fix it are the problem, havent a clue, hence the plea for help.
 

Gear:
Skywatcher EQM3pro mount, Skywatcher 150pds, Canon 100d, SV905C guide camera, SV165 guide scope, Baader MPCC Mark III coma corrector, Celestron X-Cel LX 3x Barlow

A few comments on your query:

1 After you did the 3 star alignment did you put the scope back to the park position before connecting to NINA? (you should do) Not actually sure that use case works to be honest, where you use a mix of handset and NINA.

2 Assuming you set up time and date in your handset, make sure your date format is right.... its American format with month first. I go caught out with this a few times when I still used the handset and the scope would go off in the wrong direction.

3 Sounds like you're doing a funny mix of using the handset (hence 3 star alignment) and using NINA. I would strongly suggest dropping the handset altogether, get plate solving working and spend the next few years wondering why you didn't do that sooner  

4 When you tell the scope to go to park in NINA, does it go back to pointing at Polaris?

That should give us a bit more info to go on.

Ed

[Philobr]

I think it's #3

Doing 3 star alignment with the mount then going into NINA.

I'll try your suggestions. 

Thanks so much.

 

[newbie alert]

18 hours ago, Philobr said:

I think it's #3

Doing 3 star alignment with the mount then going into NINA.

I'll try your suggestions. 

Thanks so much.

 

Doing a 3 star alignment on the handset is a good idea before you open up your capture program ( in your case Nina) or you can use the capture program to accurately center your stars if you bring up the the reticle and place the stars bang in the center...  Moving forward you can drop this and just plate solve

With regards to the scope slewing to targets it will either be scope on the east or the west side of the meridian, depending on which side the target is, so sometimes it looks like it only has to go a short slew..  but seems to take the long way around, it isn't... 

Regarding PhD, it's fairly straightforward once you've calibrated etc but can be daunting at first... You can setup using the wizard and do your dark Library and bad pixel map beforehand 

Where abouts in the world are you? Someone close maybe able to help..

[StevieDvd]

"Polar aligned the telescope, did a 3 star algnment, then plugged the telescope into the laptop"

It appears you may have too many things thinking they are controlling the mount.  When you manually PA and star align are you returning the scope to the home position? The software (Nina) when connected needs to be in synch with the mount and is usually started with a home position setting.  Then if using a planetarium software for your gotos, that must sync with mount/other software.

If you take the handset out of the equation and PA with Nina it will platesolve and the date/time/location will have to match to get PA done. If you then star align the last step is to sync the computer/mount so later goto's are accurate.

Given the mention of Stellarium & PHD2 you really don't have a need for the handset anyway.

 

[ollypenrice]

Too much software. Why don't you just use the handset, do a star alignment, GoTo your target and take a test sub? You will probably want to nudge the framing a bit so use the handset to nudge it, take another test shot, repeat and then start your autoguider. Because you are trying to use external software to find your target you haven't even got to the stage of running your autoguider.

A PC mania has overtaken astrophotographers in the last few years. The only way to find your target is to plate solve... etc. This is nonsense. 95% of the images in my gallery were located and framed as I describe.

https://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other

Olly

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Your title is a little confusing as this sounds like it has nothing to do with autoguiding as it happens when you slew to a target at which stage autoguiding is not even being used.
How much imaging have you done before starting to use autoguiding ?
Did you once have it all working and only since introducing PHD2 and a guide scope and camera it has gone wrong ?
All sounds a bit confusing to me as PHD2 and autoguiding has no influence at all over slewing to target only once on target and tracking will they come into play.

If you have no real experience in imaging yet then don't panic as we all had these sort of issues once and best not to try to do everything in one go, forget the guiding for now and concentrate on good polar alignment and slewing to somewhere near the target, it will not go bang on the correct position but should be in the ball park at least if your settings are correct.

Maybe tell us where in the world you are and maybe some screenshots of your setup in NINA regarding the mount and Astrometry. Check things like the time, site coordinates.
How are you telling it to go to the target, through NINA or handset ?

Steve

Edited January 8, 2023 by teoria_del_big_bang

[Pompey Monkey]

11 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Too much software. Why don't you just use the handset, do a star alignment, GoTo your target and take a test sub? You will probably want to nudge the framing a bit so use the handset to nudge it, take another test shot, repeat and then start your autoguider. Because you are trying to use external software to find your target you haven't even got to the stage of running your autoguider.

A PC mania has overtaken astrophotographers in the last few years. The only way to find your target is to plate solve... etc. This is nonsense. 95% of the images in my gallery were located and framed as I describe.

https://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other

Olly

I've done that and I've watched you do it too. It is a satisfying process in itself. 

However, without the luxury of time that a well situated observatory provides, platesolving is a fantastic tool to increase the total integration time over a session.

Particularly if switching between multiple targets.

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, Pompey Monkey said:

I've done that and I've watched you do it too. It is a satisfying process in itself. 

However, without the luxury of time that a well situated observatory provides, platesolving is a fantastic tool to increase the total integration time over a session.

Particularly if switching between multiple targets.

Indeed but, so far, all it has done is impede the OP's ability to take a picture. My point is simply that it isn't necessary at this stage.

Olly

[tomato]

Indeed, walk before you try to run. 
 

If you are just starting out, I would manually move to a bright star, centre it visually then sync the mount with the handset. 
Get the camera focused and taking images through your chosen software, and get some images in the can to give you a morale booster before moving onto guiding, platesolving etc.

IT and modern AP is a wonderful thing but if it doesn’t work straight out of the box (which it rarely does) it can drain your enthusiasm for this hobby in no time.

The book “Making Every Photon Count” by Steve Richards is a brilliant guide to how to successfully make Astrophotography work from the outset.

[StevieDvd]

Having looked at the posts @Philobr has been trying to get autoguiding setup before, so the thread title is understandable. It would seem a new snag has been encountered, perhaps as a result of adding something new in the setup.

We don't have the facts about previous astro visual/imaging knowledge that @Philobr has until we are told so we should not presume too much.

As @ollypenrice has said 'too much software...' could be the problem, and in that I would include the handset as it has embedded firmware.  We don't know which date/time/location and mount position is being set in each of the parts which can set/use them - and which one is winning and getting it wrong.

You don't have to use plate-solving, it's just a tool.  Likewise, you don't have to use a handset either. Some mounts don't come with them, and the eqmod creators were suggesting not to plug them in before plate-solving became more accessible.

@Philobr if you have not sorted the problem give us some more details so we can help. If you have, post the solution as it may help others in future searches on the forum.

 

Steve

[carastro]

17 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Too much software. Why don't you just use the handset, do a star alignment, GoTo your target and take a test sub? You will probably want to nudge the framing a bit so use the handset to nudge it, take another test shot, repeat and then start your autoguider. Because you are trying to use external software to find your target you haven't even got to the stage of running your autoguider.

A PC mania has overtaken astrophotographers in the last few years. The only way to find your target is to plate solve... etc. This is nonsense. 95% of the images in my gallery were located and framed as I describe.

https://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other

Olly

Absolutely Olly, I still use the handset, not one of my images was done using platesolving.   Though I do sometimes have a bit of trouble finding some targets, but generally if I sync on the nearest bright star to my target it is not a problem.  Many of my Astro  friends have nagged me to use Platesolving and indeed on the odd occasion this would have saved time, as I sometimes have to try to see whether my target is in the FOV (if faint) by examining the star patterns. 

But I have tried 3 times so far to get platesolving to work each time with assistance, and 3 times it has not worked.  Though the last try was getting closer and I suspect an old  EQdir cable which I have now replaced.,  Trouble is I am reluctant to waste clear skies (which are few and far between) messing around with software that so far has just failed.

Carole  

[alacant]

On 13/12/2022 at 18:24, Philobr said:

I cant get autoguiding to work

Hi

You have something -probably very simple- missing or have overlooked. All we can do from the information you have given forum-wise is guess what that maybe.

By far the easiest way to get guiding working is having someone alongside who knows what they're doing. Your local astro club will be only too pleased to help.

Cheers and good luck.

[carastro]

To be honest, I think you are trying to run before you can walk, it would be better if you could just try to get the autoguiding to work using PHD software. 

Your problem might just be trying to connect PHD to Nina.   If it works using just PHD on it's own, you will know that the camera, cable and PHD and your location and side of the meridian are OK, then you will have eliminated those issues.  If that all works OK on it's own, then there is something wrong with NINA connecting to PHD.  

While you are trying to resolve that issue, you can simply image with NINA and use PHD independently using PHD software until you have resolved the NINA issue.  I recall some years ago when I was doing dithering I had to set something in PHD (server I think it was) to enable PHD to connect to my imaging camera (so PHD knew when I was taking an image), so it might simply be an issue like that.  

Carole 

Edited January 8, 2023 by carastro

[david_taurus83]

A 150P on that mount is going to be a struggle. It's like a 200p on an EQ5.

[bosun21]

I thankfully avoided all this dilemma and bought an asiair plus. Without any astrophotography experience I can now polar align without Polaris, slew to target and plate solve, centre the target, get perfect focus with my EAF, control my filter wheel and plan my auto run. Best little box I ever bought.

Edited January 8, 2023 by bosun21
Typo

[900SL]

The ASI Air Pro gets a lot of flack but for beginners it's pretty useful, as it generally avoids all these software and IT glitches. I found it very useful as a beginner, it has given me a good grounding in the basics, enabled me to get going from the off,  and I've now decided to complicate matters by setting up a remote PC rig with NINA PHD2 Sharpcap et al 😂

[adyj1]

7 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

I thankfully avoided all this dilemma and bought an asiair plus. Without any astrophotography experience I can now polar align without Polaris, slew to target and plate solve, centre the target, get perfect focus with my EAF, control my filter wheel and plan my auto run. Best little box I ever bought.

A nice option if you can afford it and all the ZWO kit it relies on... 

[bosun21]

4 hours ago, adyj1 said:

A nice option if you can afford it and all the ZWO kit it relies on... 

You only need a ZWO camera to use the asiair plus. The rest you can do manually like focus and change filters etc. It doesn’t rely on anything else.