PPEC and CGE Pro PEC Training with PEC Tools

[mark matzner]

Hi Group,
I was able to get Celestron's PEC Tools software to function last night. I used the st-4 cable from the Lodestar guide cam and the Autoguide port on the Pro. And the PHD2 mount choice as "on camera" as opposed to ASCOM. This allowed me to run PHD2, the mount, and PEC Tools concurrently.

As an aside, I found I needed to do a calibration before the mount would guide.

it did not occur to me until I was about 60% thru the PEC Tools batch process that maybe I should not have used the PPEC algorithm in PHD2, but rather one of the older ones, for this purpose. Any thoughts on this? This is my maiden voyage so I don't know I would recognize any problems this may have caused. I can always re-run the PEC Tools process.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Mark

[Andy Galasso]

On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 6:59 AM, mark matzner <mdma...@gmail.com> wrote:

I used the st-4 cable from the Lodestar guide cam and the Autoguide port on the Pro.  And the PHD2 mount choice as "on camera" as opposed to ASCOM.

It is my understanding from the PEC Tool help file that you should be able to use the PEC tool when PHD2 is connected to the mount with the Celestron ASCOM driver, and On-camera should not be needed.

it did not occur to me until I was about 60% thru the PEC Tools batch process that maybe I should not have used the PPEC algorithm in PHD2, but rather one of the older ones, for this purpose.  Any thoughts on this?

I don't see any reason why not to use PPEC for training PEC -- in fact it is probably the best choice. Be sure to let PPEC stabilize by guiding for at least one full worm cycle or longer before you start the training in the PEC tool.

After the PEC Tool training is done you'll need to reset PPEC by stopping guiding (press the stop button in PHD2). When you start guiding again with PEC playback is active, PPEC will re-train itself to remove only the residual PE.

Andy

[mark matzner]

It is my understanding from the PEC Tool help file that you should be able to use the PEC tool when PHD2 is connected to the mount with the Celestron ASCOM driver, and On-camera should not be needed.

 

I had no luck with that arrangement.  PEC Tools would not start if PHD2 was running, and vice versa with the ASCOM setup. I use ASCOM for guiding and will recalibrate on the next session.

I don't see any reason why not to use PPEC for training PEC -- in fact it is probably the best choice. Be sure to let PPEC stabilize by guiding for at least one full worm cycle or longer before you start the training in the PEC tool.

 

Yes, my bad.  I knew about the stabilization, but did not make the mental connection.  As said, I can redo it.  Actually pretty easy the 2nd time around.

 

Thanks,

Mark

[peter wolsley]

Mark,
It is a bit of a "can of worms" getting PECTool to work with PHD2.  The problem with PECTool, as I understand it, is that PECtool only has two methods for connecting to your mount.  One is to directly connect to the mount via a com port.  This method totally eliminates the possibility of using ASCOM because the com port to the mount is now dedicated to PECTool and not available to ASCOM.  Only one piece of software can connect to the com port at any time.

There is one "custom" method for keeping both ASCOM and PECTools talking to the mount and that is to introduce NexRemote to the mix.  If you run NexRemote and configure NexRemote to use the mount's com port you can also declare a "virtual com port" and tell ASCOM to use this virtual port.  For this scheme to work you have to also calibrate/align your mount using NexRemote as it completely bypasses your hardware hand controller.  Nexremote is actually a software emulator of your hardware handcontroller and both can't be operated at the same time.  For my CGEM the USB to serial cabling actually plugs into my handcontroller but when using NexRemote I shouldn't touch any of the hardware handcontroller buttons (I can touch the slew buttons but that's all).

That was a messy explaination but now that you are using NexRemote you now have a method for additionally connecting PECTool to your mount.  PECTool has a method called "NexRemote Direct" which utilizes a very custom interface in NexRemote that allows it to communicate with your mount, your ASCOM driver and PECTool simultaneously.  I have used this method several times.

If you don't want to go down this road then you are left with not using ASCOM, or NexRemote when using PECTool.  You simply connect PHD2 to the mount using the "On Camera" method and connect PECTool to the mount's com port.  This is exactly what you have already been doing. There is nothing wrong with this method and nothing wrong with using the PPEC feature of PHD2 while using PECTool.  The reason why is that PECTool is only recording the RAW RA position feedback of your mount and the RA Index.  It does not look at any autoguiding commands. All that is important is that your guiding is good.  If your guiding is all over the map then PECtool is going to blindly record the RA movements and convert them into a PE curve.

Peter

[mark matzner]

Peter, Andy,
I ran the PECTools routine again last night. I followed the same protocol as described in my original post.
Two things done differently were 1). bumping the number of runs from 5 to 8. And 2). allowing the PPEC in PHD2 to stabilize before starting the routine.
At the conclusion I removed the st-4 cable and returned the choice in PHD2 from "on camera" to ASCOM, and recalibrated.
All worked well.

Mark

[Andy Galasso]

Excellent, thanks for the update.