Abort mid-sequence

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Suzanne Beers

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Mar 21, 2026, 8:20:32 AM (7 days ago) Mar 21
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Good morning.  
  I imaged a 4-tile mosaic of the Vela SNR last night.  Near end of the sequence on the second tile, the AG failed and aborted the sequence.  This time there were no error messages in PHD2.  SGP had an error saying that the guide star had been lost.  
  The last image that was captured started at 00:00:02 Chilean Daylight Time (UTC-3).  Luckily, I came out at 00:14 to watch the tile swap and discovered the abort without the loss of much data.  
  After the issue earlier this week, I have been very diligent about the AG cable...it was in place and secure.  There were no clouds.  
  Can you tell from the logs if this is an issue with the ASI120MM ASCOM driver? (Camera2_2)

Thanks!  
Suzanne

Bruce Waddington

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Mar 21, 2026, 11:47:29 AM (7 days ago) Mar 21
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The lost-star events were triggered by large changes in the primary star brightness, perhaps because of changes in sky transparency (e.g. cirrus clouds).  You should disable the star-mass checking feature - that's on the Guiding tab in Advanced Settings.  This sort of intermittent problem should have been recovered by your session manager application, I don't know why that didn't happen.  

Regards,
Bruce

Suzanne Beers

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Mar 21, 2026, 12:28:07 PM (7 days ago) Mar 21
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Thanks so much Bruce - I really, really appreciate your help and quick responses - the BEST help I've experienced!  
 
I know this isn't a PHD2 problem, but I wonder if you might have some insights based upon your comment to my last issue while capturing a 4-tile mosaic of the Southern Cross, about weird position reports from the mount...   

I have spent the entire morning trying to mosaic the four tiles from last night in APP...3&4 will NOT register.  I can mosaic 1&2 together and 3&4 together - but have been completely unsuccessful in creating the 4-tile mosaic that I theoretically gathered the data on last night.  

I created the sequence plan in SGP's Framing&Mosaic tool - the mosaic is at a 50degree camera angle.  I have had issues in the past with SGP, when the camera angle was not at 0 or 90 degrees...SGP's answer was "some parts of the sky are more difficult than others"...   The attached journal entry has screen shots of the F&M plan and the resulting 2-tile mosaics.  

Any thoughts?  Other than, stop trying to do 4-tile mosaics??  ...and if you don't have time, I totally get it and really, really appreciate your help with the PHD2 issues (that ironically have both occurred in Tile#2 of a 4-tile mosaic).  This is a new (about to become long-standing?) issue for me!



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Capture Notes VelaXYZ 4tile mosaic 20Mar2026.docx

Suzanne Beers

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Mar 21, 2026, 4:07:29 PM (6 days ago) Mar 21
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Bruce - Never mind my question about the mosaic not coming together.  That is a "known" issue (at least I should have known since I experienced and reported it in Dec2023) with SGP plate solving directing a camera rotation that is about 90 degrees off, if the plan calls for a target's camera rotation angle other than 0 or 90 degrees.  (In this case, I had the target planned at 50 degrees.  My previous example (Jellyfish Nebula was at 135 degrees - both were captured at approximately 90 degrees off from those desired angles)
  Before I started the sequence last night, I rotated the camera to 50 degrees (manually using the tape I have on the outside of my camera as a guide).  When I ran the sequence, SGP plate solver (ASTAP) directed a camera rotation of 84 degrees - I complied - and got tiles that won't mosaic together.  
  Attached is the email I got from Nico Carver.
  Here's the SGP Trouble ticket I submitted in Dec2023 for the same issue:  https://forum.sequencegeneratorpro.com/t/plate-solve-camera-angle-when-framing-is-not-0-or-90-degrees/18352

Time to learn NINA!
Gmail - Nico 4-tile mosaic issue.pdf
Vela SNR 4tile captured_vs_planned.jpg

Bruce Waddington

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Mar 21, 2026, 4:18:32 PM (6 days ago) Mar 21
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Ok, sorry you had trouble.  We don't try to provide advice on this sort of thing here and in this case, it's just as well - I know nothing about mosaics or SGP.

Bruce

Suzanne Beers

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Mar 21, 2026, 8:01:31 PM (6 days ago) Mar 21
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I'll see what kind of lemonade I can make out of the data...
  Thanks for all your help!!

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