PLEASE HELP! SKYWATCHER EQ3 + ALTAIR ASTRO

[mark kemp]

Last night I tried to set up my Guiding on PHD2 with my Atair GPCAMAR0130M. I didn't have much luck, I can see with the camera on the Altair Software but I'm currently using it in the day time to try and figure this thing out. My screen at the moment on PHD2 is this.

How do i adjust the camera exposure so I can see something?

As I was writing something hapenned.


Did one of you do something? haha.
One last thing. I have been watching vidoes and I'm still confused. I don't think my SKYWATCHER EQ3 has ASCOM, So I should be selecting 'in mount' for mount type and 'none' for Aux Mount? Also can I adjust the exposure etc on my camera on PHD? as it seems to be grayed out.

Regards

[mark kemp]

Also it seems When I disconect I'm back in the dsame position. Does it take a while for the camera to kick in? I'm really getting to the point of just putting it back in the box lol

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[Brian Valente]

Hi Mark

 

Using your camera during the daytime is way too much light. Next to the brain on the bottom left of your screen you will see a pop up indicating the exposure time. adjust it to as low as possible, maybe .001 ish

 

Thanks

 

Brian

 

 

Brian Valente

Brianvalentephotography.com

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[rhfar...@outlook.com]

Hello, I am trying a similar setup for the first time tonight.  The camera works better for me with the camera frame rate lowered which might be the issue the OP had on top of too much exposure.

I have my Altair 290M camera working, Altair capture, Sharpcap and PHD downloaded.  I also installed the Altair ascom drivers.

Trying to run through the |initial PHD2 setup screen. All is good until it asks to select a mount.  Should I not be seeing Altair ascom in the list?  tried copying the new dll files over, re booting etc but cannot see anything along these lines in the mount drop down menu?

Was hoping to have a play tonight as should be clear sky.

Thanks Rob

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Rob.  I’m not following what you’re saying here – the Altair is a camera, not a mount AFAIK.  Right?  What mount are you using?  You should install the correct ASCOM driver for the mount and use that.  If there isn’t one, you’ll have to use the ST-4 guiding interface from the camera, which translates to ‘On camera’ for the mount selection.  This is all described in a lot of detail in the Basic Use section of the help docs.

 

https://openphdguiding.org/manual/?section=Basic_use.htm

https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-best-practices/

 

Good luck,

Bruce

 

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[rhfar...@outlook.com]

Thanks Bruce,

as you will gather I am trying to rush this and get something operating tonight but with very little understanding.

So I have a EQ3-2  pro.

Altair 290M connected to the laptop via USB.  Cameras guide port connected to the autoguider socket on the EQ3

So do I need to search for ascom drivers for the EQ3 now as well as those Ive downloaded for the camera?

Thanks Rob

[rhfar...@outlook.com]

OK, I have updated the ascom platform and loaded the skywatcher drivers. I now see my mount. Next hurdle is it shows nothing in the comms port dropdown. What do I do here?

Thanks

[bw_msgboard]

 

 

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From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of rhfar...@outlook.com

Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2018 10:03 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding

Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re: PLEASE HELP! SKYWATCHER EQ3 + ALTAIR ASTRO

 

Thanks Bruce,

 

as you will gather I am trying to rush this and get something operating tonight but with very little understanding.

 

Ok.  Quite often a recipe for great frustration but you probably know the risks. <g>

 

So I have a EQ3-2  pro.

 

Altair 290M connected to the laptop via USB.  Cameras guide port connected to the autoguider socket on the EQ3

 

So do I need to search for ascom drivers for the EQ3 now as well as those Ive downloaded for the camera?

 

If you just want to get something working, you can use the ‘on camera’ mount option and go with what you have.  There are many advantages to using an ASCOM interface, but maybe you want to defer that until you have more time.  Or you could go ahead and install that software now and use the on-camera option as a fall-back option.  When you do tackle the EQASCOM installation, you’ll want to follow the advice given here:

 

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

 

Good luck,

Bruce

 

Thanks Rob

 

On Wednesday, January 3, 2018 at 2:22:40 PM UTC, mark kemp wrote:

Last night I tried to set up my Guiding on PHD2 with my Atair GPCAMAR0130M. I didn't have much luck, I can see with the camera on the Altair Software but I'm currently using it in the day time to try and figure this thing out. My screen at the moment on PHD2 is this.

How do i adjust the camera exposure so I can see something?

As I was writing something hapenned.


Did one of you do something? haha.
One last thing. I have been watching vidoes and I'm still confused. I don't think my SKYWATCHER EQ3 has ASCOM, So I should be selecting 'in mount' for mount type and 'none' for Aux Mount? Also can I adjust the exposure etc on my camera on PHD? as it seems to be grayed out.

Regards

--

[bw_msgboard]

You need to have a separate cable connection from the laptop to the serial port on the mount.  Since most laptops don’t have serial ports anymore, that usually means you need to install a USB-Serial port adapter and use that.  The s/w that comes with the USB-serial adapter will create a COM port number for you.  The ASCOM mount driver will want to know which port that is.

 

Bruce

 

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From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of rhfar...@outlook.com
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2018 10:25 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re: PLEASE HELP! SKYWATCHER EQ3 + ALTAIR ASTRO

 

OK, I have updated the ascom platform and loaded the skywatcher drivers. I now see my mount. Next hurdle is it shows nothing in the comms port dropdown. What do I do here?

--

[rhfar...@outlook.com]

OK, Am I doing something major wrong here then.

I thought I connect the camera to the Laptop via USB, then the cameras guide port to the port on the mount?

My laptop does happen to have a serial port but do I need that connection also? and if so does that replace the hand control. Im not running EQmod, just PHD2 + Sharpcap + altaircapture and I have loaded Astro Tortilla.

Thanks

[Andy Galasso]

On Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 2:06 PM, <rhfar...@outlook.com> wrote:

I thought I connect the camera to the Laptop via USB, then the cameras guide port to the port on the mount?

My laptop does happen to have a serial port but do I need that connection also? and if so does that replace the hand control. Im not running EQmod

There are two alternative ways to connect to the mount.  The preferred way is to use EQASCOM.   But since you mentioned you were looking for a quick and easy solution Bruce mentioned the On-camera connection method. For On-camera you use the ST4 guide cable that came with the camera to connect the camera to the mount's ST4 guide port and use On-camera as the mount selection in PHD2. When you have more time available you should look at EQMOD and the EQMOD Yahoo Group to learn how to connect to the mount with the EQMOD ASCOM driver.  When you have an EQMOD connection you will no longer use the ST4 guide cable and should remove it.

Andy

[Andy Galasso]

On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 1:11 PM, mark kemp <kempm...@gmail.com> wrote:

I managed to get it working, Panic over! thanks everyone

Thanks for the update, glad to hear you got it resolved.

Andy