New to PHD2 and using ASI224MC as autoguider but cant find camera settings

[Eric Watson]

Hello PHD2 community!! 

I'm very new to PHD2 and astrophotography. I have a ZWO 60mm guidescope and ASI224MC as my guide camera. I have my profile set to ASI ZWO camera and my Celestron Telescope mount and it connects fine but I cannot set my gain to help clear up the picture so I can focus so I can select a star, The camera settings next to the brain are greyed out. Can someone tell me if I missed a setting?

Clear skies.   

[Andy Galasso]

Hi Eric,

Welcome to PHD2.

The gain setting for your ZWO camera is in the brain on the Camera Tab:

Andy

[Brian Valente]

Andy – that’s only for the native ZWO driver, correct? I still use ASCOM ;)

 

Thanks

 

Brian

 

 

Brian Valente

Brianvalentephotography.com

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[Andy Galasso]

On Wed, May 16, 2018 at 4:51 PM, Brian Valente <bval...@gmail.com> wrote:

Andy – that’s only for the native ZWO driver, correct? I still use ASCOM ;)

Right.  With the ASCOM driver connection you would set the gain in the ASCOM camera setup window -- click the wrench-screwdriver button next to the Connect button in the Connect Equipment window.

Andy

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Eric.  You’ve already gotten good answers about how to adjust the camera gain – but since you’re new to PHD2, I think it’s possible you’re asking the wrong question.  Before tinkering around with the camera gain, you might want to check a couple of things.  First, you need to have something recognizable in the field of view and it needs to be sufficiently well focused that it stands out from the background.  Otherwise, all you’ll see is a noise pattern.  If you’re way out of focus, you may need to start with a really bright star or even the moon.  Second, you should adjust the gamma slider to see if that helps the view:

 

 

Anyway, welcome to the group, hope you get going quickly.

 

Bruce

 

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From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Eric Watson

Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2018 12:43 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding

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[Eric Watson]

Thank you all for your help. Getting my gamma and the camera gain set really helped.  I tried it last night and used Venus as my focus target since it was a new moon and was able to get the camera focused. After polar alignment was was able to get guiding going and I think I was doing OK but I'm not sure, but I guess so since the software did say I was guiding. I set my exposure to 3 seconds and my total RMS error score was jumping between 1.2 and 1.9 arc seconds. Is this good? My history RA and DEC graphs were all over the place at times,   I was at Y +/-16 . From what I've been seeing in videos that seems way too high, If I recall my RA was around 20 and Hys was at 35 and DEC was at 60. Should I focus more on the Total RMS or the RA Osc numbers to make sure I'm getting the best performance? 

Thanks again :) 

[Andy Galasso]

Hi Eric,

Now that you've got your focus and guide star selection under control and have some actual guiding data you might want to check out Tutorial: Analyzing PHD2 Guiding Results.

If you're looking for help interpreting your guiding results, you can post your Guide Log: Getting Help.

Andy