I'm back to share my problems again. Please review my logs - I get EXCELLENT and lousy guiding.

[Ron Kramer]

I started astrophotography last spring. PHD2 was new to me and it's been 3 months or so and it's been a love-hate (more so confusing) experience.

I asked for help before - we assumed I was overweighing the mount. I REALLY lightened the load and not much change.  I fiddled and things went good again

then poor again and with frustration I purchased and installed a OAG to eliminate the possible problems and weight of the guide scope. 

The guide scope was around 150mm FL and with OAG I'm using the imagine tube which is (with focal reducer) 384mm  FL.  (I enter that in PHD/SGP as my guide scope FL right?)

With the external scope I could sometimes get  RMS total of 0.22   WOW!  but sometimes 0.60.  (up and down) while seeing seemed to stay very good. (I often use my HFR focus results to judge my seeing conditions). 

___

Last night first time with OAG.  It was a logical and fairly painless transition.  Again at times I had "decent"? guiding and other times horrible.  What I want to ask is...

With the guide scope - is the RMS total of  0.22   - the same reading as with the OAG and much higher FL imaging scope?  What I'm saying is... while the graph Looked similar, the good RMS reading for the OAG setup was more like 0.50.   Bad was  .80 +

vs   0.22  and 0.45  good and bad for the guide scope external setup.   (do these reading change with FL?)  or are they consistent numbers for all configurations? 

I also recorded and played my PEC for my NEQ6pro mount and played it back  "on and off" and found no help from it.  If anything it seemed to make things worse? 

____

Enough jabber - The beef is in the logs I'm told.  I'm viewing them in the  log viewer program (cool) but not sure what I'm seeing.

THANK YOU so much for the support. 

The two log files I've attached are...

 xxxx952.txt  -  AOG guider last night. (first time) I kept playing with and adjusting settings. 

xxxxx052,txt -  My last guide scope night, with very and good guiding as well as issues (UP N DOWN) all the time. Despite I feel seeing is quite consistent.

Despite sitting there and nursing it all night - I have had some decent success's for a noobie.  But I'd like to try my 8" RC and figure I should work out the kinks in guiding first.

[Brian Valente]

Ron it looks like your DEC in calibration wasn’t responding well.

 

Did you try running the guide assistant and seeing what it said/following its advice?

 

 

 

Thanks

 

Brian

 

 

Brian Valente

Brianvalentephotography.com

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[Ron Kramer]

I suspect my setup specs are in the log.  I'm also using a polemaster. Though I'm on a tripod in my dome (permanent) I check it each night and it is off a HAIR (temp? what ever not a pier).   So I align to perfection.  My alignment error is still reported as being quite high.  ????

[Ron Kramer]

My Dec (red graph) jumps ALL OVER - I constantly tweak numbers trying to up hysteries and reduce aggressiveness.   I get it settled and it's good a while then goes wild after a while. 

Guide assistant set my min moves to  15   (ok)  then said I might try guiding dec from one side. I wasn't real sure how to do this.  I  "TRIED"  NORTH only and SOUTH only and both lost dec off the graph. I have to keep it on auto?

Not much else is said...  I thnk it reported my polar alighnment at  9 arc min? 

[Brian Valente]

I wouldn’t sweat what it reports for PA. I use polemaster too and I know it’s good, and it still reports implausible PA for me too

 

What did the GA report as your DEC backlash?

[Ron Kramer]

I waited through it. I don't remember it suggesting anything when completed.  SURELY this isn't right. 

[Ron Kramer]

Is there a way I can CALIBRATE or do testing during the day with no stars?   At night - I hate to waste time, so I do it and start capturing.  But I may have to waste a night just calibrating or something? 

[Ron Kramer]

Is that guide assistant report/backlash saved in a log file by chance? 

[Brian Valente]

Not to my knowledge, no

 

The calibration results are not saved in the guidelogs, but they may be in the debug logs

 

 

It’s pretty clear DEC is at least a main culprit, you saw it yourself in those calibration graphs.

[Ron Kramer]

I see in all logs - this repetitive saw tooth pattern. Is this normal?   

[steve]

El 15/09/2017 a las 17:31, Ron Kramer escribió:
> > > My Dec (red graph) jumps ALL OVER - I constantly tweak numbers trying > to up hysteries and reduce aggressiveness.

Hi. Fellow eq6 user here.  RE: DEC.

Just before the software gurus step in, may I offer some observations which got me going?

The mesh between the worm and crown gear needs to be loose -enough to enable you to detect it when pushing the telescope by hand. Remove the DEC motor and have a look at the mesh between the idler and the driven gear on the motor. Make sure there is play between them. Make sure those also mesh loosely enough to be able to see movement. When you replace the DEC motor, don't push it hard against the gear on the worm shaft. One last trick is to try with the telescope perfectly balanced rather than camera-end heavy.

Next, drift align and run the ga. Now your tweaks will do something, I'm sure.
HTH and clear skies,
Steve

[Ron Kramer]

And same saw tooth pattern as if the mount is straying then gets kicked back in line.  But why does it keep straying? 

guide scope log (not OAG)

[Brian Valente]

This does not look like a repetitive pattern to me. it looks like some normal guiding with

 

I’m sure there are some periodic errors going on in there, but no, not what you point out

 

Thanks

 

Brian

 

 

Brian Valente

Brianvalentephotography.com

 

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kramer

Sent: Friday, September 15, 2017 8:58 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding <open-phd...@googlegroups.com>

--

[Ron Kramer]

Hi Steve, thanks! - but I don't know what language you're speaking.   open my new mount?   idler?  any youtube step by steps on this?

[steve]

El 15/09/2017 a las 18:05, Ron Kramer escribió:

Hi Steve, thanks! - but I don't know what language you're speaking.   open my new mount?   idler?  any youtube step by steps on this?

Hi Ron
Ah, OK. Sorry. Yeah, the motors are here and the DEC, here.

But yes, sw quality control is well, let's say... So you have to dismantle it if you want to do AP. Or, send it back and let your middle man fix it and risk it being returned in a worse state!

HTH,
Steve

On Friday, September 15, 2017 at 11:57:36 AM UTC-4, Steve Sheriff wrote:

El 15/09/2017 a las 17:31, Ron Kramer escribió:
> > > My Dec (red graph) jumps ALL OVER - I constantly tweak numbers trying > to up hysteries and reduce aggressiveness.
Hi. Fellow eq6 user here.  RE: DEC.

Just before the software gurus step in, may I offer some observations which got me going?

The mesh between the worm and crown gear needs to be loose -enough to enable you to detect it when pushing the telescope by hand. Remove the DEC motor and have a look at the mesh between the idler and the driven gear on the motor. Make sure there is play between them. Make sure those also mesh loosely enough to be able to see movement. When you replace the DEC motor, don't push it hard against the gear on the worm shaft. One last trick is to try with the telescope perfectly balanced rather than camera-end heavy.

Next, drift align and run the ga. Now your tweaks will do something, I'm sure.
HTH and clear skies,
Steve

--

[Ron Kramer]

Here is the debug.  It shows backlash = 1600?   I had also tried checking the box to use BL comp and not use it - neither seemed to change anything.

On Friday, September 15, 2017 at 11:16:25 AM UTC-4, Ron Kramer wrote:

[Brian Valente]

Is that backlash the result of a guiding assistant recommendation?

 

If you aren’t sure, I’d recommend running the GA again (maybe after some of the suggestions Steve had) and seeing what it says

 

It seems there is an issue with your DEC that PHD is not able to handle.

 

 

 

I’d say

 

Thanks

 

Brian

 

 

Brian Valente

Brianvalentephotography.com

 

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kramer
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2017 9:15 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding <open-phd...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re: I'm back to share my problems again. Please review my logs - I get EXCELLENT and lousy guiding.

 

 

Here is the debug.  It shows backlash = 1600?   I had also tried checking the box to use BL comp and not use it - neither seemed to change anything.

--

[John R Pierce]

On 9/15/2017 8:31 AM, Ron Kramer wrote:

Guide assistant set my min moves to  15   (ok)  then said I might try guiding dec from one side. I wasn't real sure how to do this.  I  "TRIED"  NORTH only and SOUTH only and both lost dec off the graph. I have to keep it on auto?

Not much else is said...  I thnk it reported my polar alighnment at  9 arc min? 

to do N or S only Dec guiding, you need to tweak your mount so its not quite polar aligned, so all Dec adjustments will be the same way, either N or S.

-- 
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Ron.  Well, you’ve certainly stirred up the forum today. <g>  I see a couple of problems, focusing only on your OAG setup.  As others have noted, your mount has some significant problems in Dec.  You’ve inadvertently made this a lot worse by using a 0.1x guide speed, which is a very bad idea for any mount that has backlash.  Take a look at this link and adjust the mount guide speed up close to 1x sidereal.  For a given amount of physical backlash (slop) in the gears, the amount of time it will take to clear the backlash is a linear function of the guide speed.  At super-slow speeds, it will take a very long time indeed.

 

https://github.com/OpenPHDGuiding/phd2/wiki/EQASCOM-Settings

 

You also need to make sure all the EQASCOM tuning and adjustment settings for guiding are disabled – PHD2 doesn’t want any “help” from the ASCOM driver.  And you’ll need to be sure any backlash correction settings in the mount are also disabled.

 

That should be the easy part.  The second problem is that something other than guiding is causing your mount to move a lot in Dec.  Here’s one of several examples:

 

 

Look at the 5 arc-sec move north at the center of the snippet.  At the point it happened, the Dec motor wasn’t even running, and no guide pulses were sent to move north.  This was an external event, something you’ll need to track down.

 

I suggest getting a new baseline with the proper guide speed settings in the mount:

1. Reset all the guiding parameters to their default values

2. Turn off the star-mass checking option in the guiding tab of the Advanced Dialog

3. Try to get a clean calibration – no lost stars for example.  If necessary, manually move the mount north at guide speed immediately before starting the calibration.  You probably have a lot of Dec backlash and that will help to clear it.

4. Re-run the Guiding Assistant – let it run for at least 10 minutes then apply any recommendations for min-move settings.  But don’t turn on backlash compensation even if it’s offered.

5. Let PHD2 guide for another 10 minutes with no dithering and no futzing around with guide parameters.  While you’re trying to track down Dec problems in the mount, dithering in Dec just makes it harder to see what’s going on.  

 

If you collect the guide and debug log files from all this, we’ll try to help you figure out your next moves.  I also think you should pay close attention to the earlier input from Steve Sheriff – these sorts of problems are often mechanical and usually require a mechanical solution.

 

Good luck,

Bruce

 

---

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kramer
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2017 9:15 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re: I'm back to share my problems again. Please review my logs - I get EXCELLENT and lousy guiding.

 

 

Here is the debug.  It shows backlash = 1600?   I had also tried checking the box to use BL comp and not use it - neither seemed to change anything.

--

[steve]

El 16/09/2017 a las 00:07, bw_msgboard escribió:

Hi Ron.  Well, you’ve certainly stirred up the forum

Hi Brian(s), hi everyone
Not the OP. My fault; as a novice, I should not have contributed. Even less so upon possible mechanical issues.
Please accept my apologies for the noise.
Cheers and clear skies,
Steve

[Ron Kramer]

Hi Ron.  Well, you’ve certainly stirred up the forum today. <g>  I see a couple of problems, focusing only on your OAG setup.  As others have noted, your mount has some significant problems in Dec. You’ve inadvertently made this a lot worse by using a 0.1x guide speed,   (I don't recall setting this as I have no idea what this does, maybe inadvertantly?) what should it be  1.0?)    which is a very bad idea for any mount that has backlash.  Take a look at this link and adjust the mount guide speed up close to 1x sidereal.   OK!    For a given amount of physical backlash (slop) in the gears, the amount of time it will take to clear the backlash is a linear function of the guide speed.  At super-slow speeds, it will take a very long time indeed.    I'm so hoping to find some easy fix - hope this is it. 

 

https://github.com/OpenPHDGuiding/phd2/wiki/EQASCOM-Settings

 

You also need to make sure all the EQASCOM tuning and adjustment settings for guiding are disabled – PHD2 doesn’t want any “help” from the ASCOM driver.  And you’ll need to be sure any backlash correction settings in the mount are also disabled.     These settings are where?  In Eqmod I see some guiding setting (I think I left alone).  But I thought I left guiding speed alone.  I tried again last night concentrating only on guiding and setup.  It was better but my  GA  said my DEC wasn't good. I'll post screen shots later.

 

 

That should be the easy part.  The second problem is that something other than guiding is causing your mount to move a lot in Dec.  Here’s one of several examples:

 

I had considered uninstalling PHD2 and deleting all data, ini and log files and reinstalling.  I've not been at this very long and when I started - I BELIEVE my guiding was very good.  I figured my mount went bad or I did something.  

QUESTION:  should my skywatcher NEQ6 sound like a blender of grinding parts when it spins up to move any direction?  I asked the dealer and they said yes that's normal.  (when I just recieved it).    I wonder now if it's grinding away at the gears and this is the result?     IT SOUNDS like it needs more lubrication.  ?    (is there warranty?) I got it last March.

QUESTION 2 -  when I went to OAG and 384FL scope  does the graph and RMS number change?  On the external guider the night before I was getting total RMS of 0.22  and It was inside 2 arc seconds on the graph.   Last night with the OAG I was almost always inside 2 arc seconds and yet the total RMS was around 0.40 - 0.60  ??     Am I looking for too much? All my stars are round in my shots and I never get trails. 

 

[Ken Self]

I had considered uninstalling PHD2 and deleting all data, ini and log files and reinstalling.  I've not been at this very long and when I started - I BELIEVE my guiding was very good.  I figured my mount went bad or I did something.  

If its a mechanical problem there is no point reinstalling PHD2. In fact, PHD2 is one of the best diagnostic aids around in my view because it is so reliable and precise. As mentioned, you need to adjust your guide rate. You do this in EQMOD - not PHD2. EQMOD will let you increase to 0.9x sidereal. You also need to run the guiding assistant and accept its advice. This will almost certainly include uni-directional guiding and you should also dither in RA only.

One thing that does strike me looking at your logs is that you have quite large excursions in both RA and Dec.That raises the question of the stability of your overall setup.

 

QUESTION:  should my skywatcher NEQ6 sound like a blender of grinding parts when it spins up to move any direction?  I asked the dealer and they said yes that's normal.  (when I just recieved it).    I wonder now if it's grinding away at the gears and this is the result?     IT SOUNDS like it needs more lubrication.  ?    (is there warranty?) I got it last March.

Another clue that the problem is mechanical. PHD2 cannot fix this. The EQ6 mounts do have a reputation for being noisy. - some more than others. But with a bit of tuning I could make mine hum more than grind. But that discussion really belongs in a different forum.

QUESTION 2 -  when I went to OAG and 384FL scope  does the graph and RMS number change?  On the external guider the night before I was getting total RMS of 0.22  and It was inside 2 arc seconds on the graph.   Last night with the OAG I was almost always inside 2 arc seconds and yet the total RMS was around 0.40 - 0.60  ??     Am I looking for too much? All my stars are round in my shots and I never get trails. 

There are too many variables involved. All I can say is that 0.22" RMS on an NEQ6 is phenomenally good. Even 0.4" to 0.6" is very good for this mount. Having said that there is nothing in your logs to indicate your guiding was anywhere near that good. I can only guess you were getting those numbers off the screen and that they are the pixel values. That would explain the difference due to focal length as the higher focal length (roughly double) would cause movements of around twice as many pixels. On top of that, if you are only looking at, say, 50 samples at a time on screen you'll see much better RMS values than over the long term. 

Are you looking for too much? It depends on whether you are happy with your images or not. You presumably want not just round stars but small ones. If you only want a flat graph I can easily sort that out for you but it wont make a jot of difference to your images.

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Steve.  Hey, wait a sec!  <g>  You have nothing to apologize for!  On the contrary, I thought your message was very helpful.  When people have personal experience with a particular mount and especially if they know some of the hardware details, they can really provide some specific help to others.  Andy and I aren’t mechanical engineers and we only have personal experience with a few mounts, so we usually have to talk in generalities when it comes to mechanical problems.  My comment about “stirring up the forum” was a joke, just a reaction to the number of messages in the thread when I finally got around to looking at my e-mail.  Please continue to contribute to the forum, we’ll all benefit.

 

Thanks,

Bruce

 

---

--

[Ron Kramer]

People said they were helping before the guru's stepped in.  I take it you're a guru!   THANK YOU  very easy to understand your instructions and explanations.  I will do this!

Last night - checked alignment. (tweaked a hair)  

Went to the CEL-equator before calibration (usually I didnt). Near meridian. Calibrated.  Was better, but still not great.

I ran GA. Around 4 minutes.  It sent min move and suggested I DEC guide in one direction. (never works for me but I don't set mount heavy one side?) I didn't see it state it...

but it set my backlash around 2480.  (I will turn off back lash as per your previous instructions). 

I plate solved and shot some more subs of M31.  Guiding was almost always within 2" graph. But dec graph was biased above the center line. ??   meaning it would touch 2" above

but never go below 1" bottom of center line.  (this means?)

Though the graph looked decent within 2"  - my total RMS was around  0.50 - .65   And started at 0.33 !!! but that didn't last long.

Here are some captures. 

My apologies for any WEIRD posting, I'm a forum person and new to GROUPS and I don't quite understand the order/reply order presented. 

[Ron Kramer]

SO it appears - I need to set guiding speed 1.0  and other defaults. Is there a way I can work on this during the day?   I'll see what it allows me without stars. = )

[Ron Kramer]

It's 1pm - daylight - I'm in my dome... trying to set things better.  I see EQMOD / ASCOM pulse guiding settings. I see DEC and RA were checked and set to 0.10  Not default ahe?  So - do I set them to  .5 to 1.  or do I uncheck and keep Eqmod settings out of my guiding? (I heard both suggestions.)  If I uncheck the boxes I don't need corrected settings in this panel?  Just unchecked and leave as is? 

[Ron Kramer]

Never mind last. I went to the settings page and it says "enable and set to .9  Did that will test tonight. Also is this how the PEC is suppose to look?

[Ron Kramer]

The GITHUB docs say  disable pulse over ride.  I don't have such a option and I have same  1.29a version? 

See my screen cap?

[Ron Kramer]

pulse sidth over ride did appear. (not sure why or now) I just noticed after adding sounds.

I then noticed under the slew RATE box there are   RA and DEC reverse (for what?)  My DEC was checked to go reverse?

Could this be the culprit behind my dec problems?

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Ron.  All I can tell is you what we have in the Wiki doc, I don’t use EQMOD.  Make sure both RA and Dec pulse guide options are set and move the sliders to 0.9.  I don’t know what the ‘reverse’ options are for, I would leave them disabled.  That said, they aren’t likely to have any effect on your guiding so long as they don’t change after the PHD2 calibration is done.  I don’t see any reason to think they have any bearing on the problems we talked about before.

 

Going forward, we always need to see your guide logs to analyze and discuss results.  Screenshots are basically useless for what we’re trying to do.

 

When it gets dark, you should repeat the earlier process using the 0.9x mount guide speed, then we can start to look harder at what’s going on with your Dec axis.  Before you do the next calibration, you’ll need to adjust the calibration step-size.  Go to the guiding tab in the Advanced Dialog, and click on the ‘Calculate’ button:

 

 

That will bring up a dialog that should show your new guide speed setting of 0.9x:

 

 

That value is being read from the mount, so if you don’t see the 0.9x value, something is still wrong in the EQMOD settings.  But if it looks right, click on ‘Ok’ and that will re-calculate the calibration step-size used in calibration.  Then you can get on with calibration and testing. 

 

Good luck,

Bruce

 

---

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kramer

Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2017 10:50 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding

--

[Ron Kramer]

BRUCE! thanks - did the .90 and removed the reverse dec.  I re-calibrated and it gave me a warning that said "really? this is WAY different from the last calibration). I said - yes really.

Still wasn't ideal so I calibrated yet again away from the celestial equator. 

I ran GA a couple times. It doesn't seem to say much.  The plot of my dec graph is "OFF" I'll post the captures then I'll attach the log file from last night.

My subs look fine (as usual).   I did tweak from  .90  to .70 or or was it .60 and seemed to improve.

You'll see my data...

LOG ATTACHED

On Friday, September 15, 2017 at 11:16:25 AM UTC-4, Ron Kramer wrote:

I started astrophotography last spring. PHD2 was new to me and it's been 3 months or so and it's been a love-hate (more so confusing) experience.

I asked for help before - we assumed I was overweighing the mount. I REALLY lightened the load and not much change.  I fiddled and things went good again

then poor again and with frustration I purchased and installed a OAG to eliminate the possible problems and weight of the guide scope. 

The guide scope was around 150mm FL and with OAG I'm using the imagine tube which is (with focal reducer) 384mm  FL.  (I enter that in PHD/SGP as my guide scope FL right?)

With the external scope I could sometimes get  RMS total of 0.22   WOW!  but sometimes 0.60.  (up and down) while seeing seemed to stay very good. (I often use my HFR focus results to judge my seeing conditions). 

___

Last night first time with OAG.  It was a logical and fairly painless transition.  Again at times I had "decent"? guiding and other times horrible.  What I want to ask is...

With the guide scope - is the RMS total of  0.22   - the same reading as with the OAG and much higher FL imaging scope?  What I'm saying is... while the graph Looked similar, the good RMS reading for the OAG setup was more like 0.50.   Bad was  .80 +

vs   0.22  and 0.45  good and bad for the guide scope external setup.   (do these reading change with FL?)  or are they consistent numbers for all configurations? 

I also recorded and played my PEC for my NEQ6pro mount and played it back  "on and off" and found no help from it.  If anything it seemed to make things worse? 

____

Enough jabber - The beef is in the logs I'm told.  I'm viewing them in the  log viewer program (cool) but not sure what I'm seeing.

THANK YOU so much for the support. 

The two log files I've attached are...

 xxxx952.txt  -  AOG guider last night. (first time) I kept playing with and adjusting settings. 

xxxxx052,txt -  My last guide scope night, with very and good guiding as well as issues (UP N DOWN) all the time. Despite I feel seeing is quite consistent.

Despite sitting there and nursing it all night - I have had some decent success's for a noobie.  But I'd like to try my 8" RC and figure I should work out the kinks in guiding first.

2

[Ron Kramer]

I think that last log was wrong one.  This should be last nights.      ...16_211147.txt

[Ron Kramer]

Are these two graphs the same thing? One is my  log file calibration.  The other is a capture

from GA?

[Andy Galasso]

Hi Ron,

Those are different things.  The log viewer is showing you the calibration, how the guide star moved on the guide camera chip in response to PHD2 sending guide pulses to the mount in RA (blue) and Dec (red). The Guiding Assistant backlash results plot is showing how the star moved (y-axis of the plot) as a function of pulse number (x-axis) through a series of North pulses followed by a series of South pulses. The white line labeled Ideal shows the expected position for a perfect mount with no backlash. The red data points are the measured positions from your mount. We can see that when PHD2 sent South guide pulses, there was a significant lag before the mount actually moved consistently South.  This is the typical signature of backlash in the declination drive.

You can find some (hopefully) comprehensive information about assistant backlash measurement here: PHD2 User Guide - Guiding Assistant, and calibration is described here: PHD2 User Guide - Calibration and here: PHD2 User Guide - Troubleshooting.

Andy

[bw_msgboard]

Hi again Ron.  It looks like you got the guide rates set right, so that’s good.  But it looks like you missed a few other things from my earlier post:

 

I suggest getting a new baseline with the proper guide speed settings in the mount:

1. Reset all the guiding parameters to their default values  - this didn’t happen, there are a number of parameter changes that made your situation worse

2. Turn off the star-mass checking option in the guiding tab of the Advanced Dialog  - still seeing sporadic lost stars due to mass change.

3. Try to get a clean calibration – no lost stars for example.  If necessary, manually move the mount north at guide speed immediately before starting the calibration.  You probably have a lot of Dec backlash and that will help to clear it.  Good job on this, your calibrations look good, but only when you cleared the backlash manually.  You got good calibration data, no need to keep re-doing these – but you should have kept the one you did at Dec=-0.3.  Calibration near the celestial equator produces the best overall results.

4. Re-run the Guiding Assistant – let it run for at least 10 minutes then apply any recommendations for min-move settings.  But don’t turn on backlash compensation even if it’s offered.  – backlash compensation was active for most of these sessions.

5. Let PHD2 guide for another 10 minutes with no dithering and no futzing around with guide parameters.  While you’re trying to track down Dec problems in the mount, dithering in Dec just makes it harder to see what’s going on. 

 

In any case, it’s clear your mount has a very large amount of Dec backlash, it takes somewhere between 7 and 15 seconds for the mount to reverse direction.  Unless you can improve this by making some of the adjustments suggested by Steve, you’ll probably need to guide in only one Dec direction.  The Help doc gives more information on how to do that. This sort of thing can’t be corrected by any sort of backlash compensation, it’s simply too large.   It also looks like you have another app doing pause/resume operations with PHD2, and the delays are often quite long – several minutes typically.  This also makes it much harder to interpret what your mount is doing because the long intervals with no guiding mean the guide star can wander far afield.  It would be better to avoid these things while trying to diagnose your mount’s behavior.

 

On the other hand, if you like the results you’re getting with your images, maybe you don’t want to fool around with this stuff.  With this mount, I think you could be facing a long slog to eliminate all the problems.  I think, best case, it might be reasonable to hope for an overall guiding RMS of about 1 arc-sec – anything better than that is likely to require a lot of work.

 

Hope this helps,

Bruce

---

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kramer
Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2017 11:38 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re: I'm back to share my problems again. Please review my logs - I get EXCELLENT and lousy guiding.

 

BRUCE! thanks - did the .90 and removed the reverse dec.  I re-calibrated and it gave me a warning that said "really? this is WAY different from the last calibration). I said - yes really.

--

[Ron Kramer]

Appears the pics didn't paste in - lets try this again.

Last night. Well yesterday. I took a leap.

I gutted the pig.

Then I buttered up the innards. = )   I removed any play in the gear mesh. 

Before it sounded like nuts and bolts in a blender, now she purrrrrrrs. 

Stuffed the BIRD.

So did it help?  I figure it helped me get some confidence in working on it. Was pretty easy.  Also helped in that I don't feel things are GRINDING as they were before.

I then did as you said,  RESET defaults in phd.  

Moved to celestrial near meridian and did a calibration.   It warned one was different from the other?    It suggested I do it again. 

I did GA - and took it's advice.  I THINK it showed a LOT LESS BACKLASH? you tell me?

The graph seems better.

So I tried to guide. SEEMED much improved?  Was around 1' on both sides of center.

HOWEVER - I moved around the sky and had mixed results pointing elsewhere? 

I THINK this may be due to some very thin clouds. I kept losing the star, they didn't seem bad visually, but they were there.  

Here's GA

Later with backlash results   The graph is much better!???  

Well that's all I have - I'll attach the log files.  AGAIN it started nicely - as high thin clouds came in I tried and gave up with horrible results. 

​

[Brian Valente]

Dec backlash looks much better

 

 

 

Thanks

 

Brian

 

 

Brian Valente

Brianvalentephotography.com

 

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kramer
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 10:35 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding <open-phd...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re: I'm back to share my problems again. Please review my logs - I get EXCELLENT and lousy guiding.

 

Appears the pics didn't paste in - lets try this again.

--

[Ron Kramer]

Logs  which started well and went south I THINK due to high thin clouds.

ALSO - I had my tripod on rubber flooring pad. I cut out the pad under the feet and it now rests on concrete. 

I then removed the mount and checked level of the tripod. Wasn't easy or accurate? As the legs of the tripod kinda moved in with weight off

and when I replaced the mount on the tripod legs they seems to expand out a bit. (throwing off my level) people say do not use bubble level.

SO I THINK I was more level.

I did a polemaster with extreme accuracy. (shows in the GA) I had also oiled and greased the mounts bolts and axis - so was very nice and smooth to align for the first time.

[Andy Galasso]

Bravo! Huge improvement. The guide error was under 1 arc-second other than when you got clouded-out.

Andy

[Ron Kramer]

I went back and re-read Steves post. It said to add a little space?  I removed a little space.  ??

Putting the motors in - it's pretty impossible to see/know the space in the other two gears I'm joining. I tried to push them together fairly snug ??

yes I was thrilled when I was 1arc... but didn't last.  Is that typical?  High thin clouds? looking up the stars seemed pretty visual. 

I could see them in the subs. But I knew they were there and my forecast program that shows satellite shots of clouds said they were there.

It kept losing the star so I figured it had to be clouds.  I was happy to see GA said I had decent alignment.  Though I still don't know if my tripod is level

Pretty hard to see with the mount off - and then not move it when putting it back on. 

[Brian Valente]

Clouds have a tendency to adversely impact guiding, so yes, I am not surprised by that

 

Especially why PHD reports star was lost

 

Thanks

 

Brian

 

 

Brian Valente

Brianvalentephotography.com

 

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kramer

Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 11:14 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding <open-phd...@googlegroups.com>

--

[John R Pierce]

On 9/19/2017 10:25 AM, Ron Kramer wrote:
> This group format stuff is new/confusing to me (if I reply in email as
> I did it is suppose to show here?) I'll post it here too.

FWIW, gmail hides your own posts from the inbox as they are already in
the sent messages folder.

[Ron Kramer]

So one last question remains before I get a chance to really test it.   Why do I leave Backlash compensation unused? and ignore what GA says to do?

 

don't I want to compensate for what it determines is BL error? 

[Andy Galasso]

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 4:37 PM, Ron Kramer <ronkra...@gmail.com> wrote:

So one last question remains before I get a chance to really test it.   Why do I leave Backlash compensation unused? and ignore what GA says to do?

don't I want to compensate for what it determines is BL error? 

For purposes of diagnosing your guiding issues, it was better to keep things as simple as possible.  Now that you have addressed the underlying mechanical issues and have achieved a reasonable level of dec backlash, it is ok to try enabling phd2's backlash comp at the level recommended by the guiding assistant.

If you do enable it, be sure to guide for several minutes to allow the backlash comp to stabilize before you start imaging for the first time after enabling it (only required when you first enable it.)

Keep in mind that your dec guiding should only be correcting the gradual dec drift and not chasing seeing, so dec direction reversals should be infrequent.

Andy

[Brian Valente]

Because you want PHD to handle the backlash

 

You don’t want two drivers for that backlash truck, so to speak. They would fight each other

 

Thanks

 

Brian

 

 

Brian Valente

Brianvalentephotography.com

 

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kramer

Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 1:38 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding <open-phd...@googlegroups.com>

--

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Ron.  As others have said, this does look a lot better – nice job!  Now you’ll probably want to get some more time with it to be sure your adjustments are stable and don’t get out of whack.  Once you think you can close the book on the bad Dec behavior, you’ll probably want to apply a periodic error correction to the mount.  It looks like you probably have uncorrected periodic error north of 20 arc-sec peak-to-peak (the red RA curve).  It’s a low-frequency error, apparently tied to the worm period of the mount:

 

 

Good luck,

Bruce

 

---

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kramer

Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 10:42 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding

Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re: I'm back to share my problems again. Please review my logs - I get EXCELLENT and lousy guiding.

 

Logs  which started well and went south I THINK due to high thin clouds.

--

[steve]

El 19/09/2017 a las 22:37, Ron Kramer escribió:

So one last question remains before I get a chance to really test it.   Why do I leave Backlash compensation unused? and ignore what GA says to do?

Hi. Well done with the motors. New mount or not, if you want to use PHD2 it must first be mechanically perfect.
There are still problems in DEC which can be cured by dismantling the whole axis. When lubricated and endfloat on the worm shaft taken up you can then adjust the mesh of the worm properly. I followed this guide.

 

don't I want to compensate for what it determines is BL error?

I think this will make matters worse until you get the worm to crown backlash and endfloat adjusted correctly as per the guide above.
HTH and clear skies,
Steve

**refitting the motors. Don't push the motor up tight; push it gently until you feel resistance. Then, with the screws holding the motor still loose, run the motor for a few minutes in both directions before finally tightening the bolts.

[Ron Kramer]

It just dawned on me... I felt my guiding wasn't as good since going OAG.   But the guide scope was like 150 FL and I'm now using the primary which is 384 fl.  SURELY that will make it seem less stable?  The higher magnification?

Also - since I couldn't log much the other night, I calibrated and logged some  last night.

ODDLY? my  GA backlash graph was different - no backlash at the top of the graph but cuved out away from desired line?

I'm testing a bit EAST heavy balance tonight.

here's last nights logs.  I have mixed feelings.  But my stars are always around.   Sometimes to fat - but I think that may be oversaturating them with to much exposure?

[Ron Kramer]

Tonight I had good skies for a hour now storms rolling in. I had very good guiding around. 1.1 to

1.3 arcs. I can live with that. !!!  Until I stay using my 8" RC ???  We'll see. 

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[Ron Kramer]

Solved this problem. Sold my NEQ6 and replaced it with a AP Mach1. = )

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[bw_msgboard]

Nicely done!  <g>

 

Have fun with it – I don’t imagine we’ll be hearing much from you though…

 

Bruce

 

---

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kramer

Sent: Saturday, October 07, 2017 12:28 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding

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