manually choosing star seems to improve my guiding

[TiffsAndAstro]

Lol 0.82" now.

Ty everyone, again, for the help and suggestions and general sounding board.

might even be 0.6" when there's no cloud. also i think my dithering might effect it abit, i get occasional time out waiting to settle errors. but i think i can live with that 

Edited August 6 by TiffsAndAstro

[alacant]

10 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

i get occasional time out waiting to settle errors.

That will be very much another thing of the past when your 10-Micron arrives😉

[TiffsAndAstro]

1 hour ago, alacant said:

That will be very much another thing of the past when your 10-Micron arrives😉

I'm not sure last night conditions were ideal for testing my guiding changes, too many clouds and vapour trails.

It's interesting that my guiding did seem improved when my snr was around 50 and peak wasn't flattened. And how much thin cloud seemed to change this. My previous focus/settings didn't seem sensitive to this, so I'm hopeful

[Elp]

Ref GS focus, it doesn't have to be bang on, you can have soft focus and the software will still detect and track stars.

Seeing last night, some people reported excellent, my guiding suggested otherwise, even fine focusing was an issue and confirmed by not being able to take 3 minute exposures, I had to dial it back to 60s, and leave the guiding at 2s initially then back to 1s. RMS didn't drop below 1 arc minute once, and settling after dithering did sometimes take longer than usual.

Edited August 7 by Elp

[alacant]

3 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

guiding changes

Seeing determines most of what the software is allowed to do. Not sure where you are, but post -a link to- the log if you like. We may be able to see something you may have overlooked.

[TiffsAndAstro]

18 minutes ago, alacant said:

Seeing determines most of what the software is allowed to do. Not sure where you are, but post -a link to- the log if you like. We may be able to see something you may have overlooked.

Not even looked at it myself. When I looked at previous logs I couldn't discern anything from them, but with my current knowledge hardly surprising.

Will upload load it asap, if you don't mind having a quick look.

Tbh I'm pretty confident I've improved it enough for me to not want to change anything unless I get a disaster next session.

Be interesting and scary what someone experienced can tell from my log.

PHD2_GuideLog_2024-08-06_213722.txt

Edited August 7 by TiffsAndAstro

[TiffsAndAstro]

i like the short segment showing 0.61" and my calibration seems flipped left/right to others i've seen online? seems at right angles though...

[alacant]

1 hour ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

tell from my log

Cloud was the main enemy:

When it was clear, good:

Suggestion: guide RA using PPEC with an intial period of 480s:

HTH, CS and good luck.

[TiffsAndAstro]

31 minutes ago, Elp said:

Ref GS focus, it doesn't have to be bang on, you can have soft focus and the software will still detect and track stars.

Seeing last night, some people reported excellent, my guiding suggested otherwise, even fine focusing was an issue and confirmed by not being able to take 3 minute exposures, I had to dial it back to 60s, and leave the guiding at 2s initially then back to 1s. RMS didn't drop below 1 arc minute once, and settling after dithering did sometimes take longer than usual.

Is this why my guiding feels random? Unknowable seeing conditions? 

Jet stream was 25 to 30m/s maybe related?

I've read various comments of how focused GS needs to be. Right now mine is probably better than it was but not perfect.

Sharpcap focus assistant was a pita and I won't be using it again. Though the focuser on my guidescope doesn't help.

Also...I ended up with best focus by undoing the screws and moving guide cam back and forth. I noticed after tightening screws the result got worse as if inducing some extreme tilt. I could reduce this by trying to tighten each equally and evenly.

Is there a way to screw my guide cam onto my guidescope?

[TiffsAndAstro]

7 minutes ago, alacant said:

Cloud was the main enemy:

When it was clear, good:

Suggestion: guide RA using PPEC with an intial period of 480s:

HTH, CS and good luck.

I really appreciate all this, but I can't see in your screenshots where it shows overall RMS for the non cloud sections

My mount doesn't have ppec. I tried using predictive on Ra in a couple of previous sessions with varying results. Didn't realise I could add a specific period but will try that in a few months when it's next clear

If clouds are my main issue, I'm very happy Ty for all this.

also Nina said I was 25" pa error, I just did a fast pa so I could slew accurately to a bright star to focus guide scope. I re did it after that and would have been below 10".

I always get a variable discrepancy between Nina 3ppa and phd2. Makes me think I need bigger measure step in Nina. Currently 30d but will experiment with 45 maybe even 60 ? 

Edited August 7 by TiffsAndAstro

[alacant]

56 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

My mount doesn't have ppec

PPEC is a guiding option for PHD2.
I know that no-one ever does, but in this game it really does pay to have a look at the documentation.

59 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

I can't see in your screenshots

No need for numbers. Just look at the graph.

Cheers

[Elp]

2 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

Is there a way to screw my guide cam onto my guidescope?

What GS is it? Most have a way of screwing on via m42 thread.

I used to get very annoyed with my SVbony 30mm but I've got a bit more attuned to how to focus, but usually always leave my 224 permanently inside it with its nosepiece adaptor, it sits physically on the nosepiece so is always in the same position every time, don't think I've focused it for 2 years despite using the 224 for imaging duties.

My 50mm I kind of know where the focus point should be on the sensor, but that one has a helical focuser, it takes less than a minute to put in a "new" guidecam and find focus. Again focusing doesn't need to be precise, if you change anything at all in relation to the GS or GC, even the slightest movement, you need to recalibrate.

Seeing will affect performance night to night for sure as it also does when doing visual only.

[TiffsAndAstro]

3 minutes ago, Elp said:

What GS is it? Most have a way of screwing on via m42 thread.

I used to get very annoyed with my SVbony 30mm but I've got a bit more attuned to how to focus, but usually always leave my 224 permanently inside it with its nosepiece adaptor, it sits physically on the nosepiece so is always in the same position every time, don't think I've focused it for 2 years despite using the 224 for imaging duties.

My 50mm I kind of know where the focus point should be on the sensor, but that one has a helical focuser, it takes less than a minute to put in a "new" guidecam and find focus. Again focusing doesn't need to be precise, if you change anything at all in relation to the GS or GC, even the slightest movement, you need to recalibrate.

Seeing will affect performance night to night for sure as it also does when doing visual only.

lol coincidentally i have zwo 30mm f4 which i suspect is very similar

ill leave it for now as i think (again) that its close enough in focus. need a cloud free night to give it a go.

i need a c adapter or something will have a google see if it might be worth trying. 

[Elp]

If it's the same, the compression screws can be removed and there's an m42 male thread on the same area. The focus method is infuriating, I remember when I started I wasted an hour racking focus from one end to the other trying to find focus and back again, it's a fine pitch thread so fine adjustment, with that one best to preliminary setup during the day on a far off object.

Edited August 7 by Elp

[TiffsAndAstro]

23 minutes ago, Elp said:

If it's the same, the compression screws can be removed and there's an m42 male thread on the same area. The focus method is infuriating, I remember when I started I wasted an hour racking focus from one end to the other trying to find focus and back again, it's a fine pitch thread so fine adjustment, with that one best to preliminary setup during the day on a far off object.

I've done the day time focusing a few times on something 500m away. Even the moon.  Never seemed good enough to then focus more closely on stars 

Alicante reckons my guiding log looks ok except through clouds, so I'm just going to not touch the GS until next chance I get to test it and see if it stays ok.

Edited August 7 by TiffsAndAstro

[TiffsAndAstro]

On 07/08/2024 at 16:27, alacant said:

Cloud was the main enemy:

When it was clear, good:

Suggestion: guide RA using PPEC with an intial period of 480s:

HTH, CS and good luck.

Strangely on switching pec back on it defaulted to 472.08