Unable to calibrate with Meade LX90 telescope

[Kenneth Welch]

The calibration process never completes or does not even start.  Have tried numerous times but I have attached logs which seem to be typical. Hoping that you can point me in the direction of the problem !

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Kenneth.  There's no real consistency between the 1/11 and 1/27 sessions, so I assume you're still just trying to get started.  In the 1/27 session, did you notice that PHD2 was constantly telling you the guide star had been lost?  You can't do anything useful, including calibration, without having guide stars to work with.  It looks like your guide camera might be poorly focused.  It's evidently a color camera which is a disadvantage to start, but it should be usable.  The logs indicate the stars appear dim and fuzzy which is typical for a badly focused guide scope.  You can't focus just by eye, you need to use a Bahtinov mask, or the the PHD2 Star Profile tool, or another app like SharpCap to achieve good focus. 

 

It looks like maybe you've just plunged into this without reading the manual or studying the available documentation.  If that's the case, you can save yourself a lot of time and grief if you invest some time in doing that.

 

Getting Help:

https://openphdguiding.org/getting-help/

 

Documentation:

https://openphdguiding.org/documentation/

 

Best practices:

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

 

Good luck,

Bruce

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From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kenneth Welch
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2022 7:15 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Unable to calibrate with Meade LX90 telescope

The calibration process never completes or does not even start.  Have tried numerous times but I have attached logs which seem to be typical. Hoping that you can point me in the direction of the problem !

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[mj.w...@gmail.com]

Hi Kenneth

Based on my LX200GPS experience, you appear to have a good connection to the mount:

Meade Generic driver - good

RA, Dec and Guidespeed are being reported from the mount - good

But during Cal, instead of RA progressing in a linear fashion, it's sometimes heading at approximately 90 degrees to the first step.

So here are eight Cal steps before the guide star was lost:

 0,  90,  90,  90,  90,  0,   0,   0,  Star Lost.

Either crossover of RA and Dec commands, or Polar Alignment is really poor.

The LX90 is on a wedge ?

Meade #505 cable (not #507) from the PC to the port in the Autostar handset ?

A USB from the guidecam output (not ST4 port) to the PC ?

RA and Dec Backlash Compensation are OFF in the handset ?

Michael

Wiltshire UK