New HEQ5 pro mount guiding issues in RA

[Liam O'Reilly]

Hi All

Hoping for some advice as getting frustrated with wasted clear nights.

I recently moved from an eq5 pro to a new HEQ5 pro with Rowan belt mod.

First night test with guiding looked promising with a couple of hours guiding showing total RMS  around 0.8"

Log file dated 14th Oct.

Since then I have had a number of sessions and can not get RA under control.

Log file dated 26th Nov section 4 is typical of what I am seeing when guiding.

Starts ok then RA drifts and guide pulses just fail to get it back.

I have tried gradually increasing the RA aggression but still runs away.

section 11 of the same file shows a 26 minute Guide Assistant run with RA drifting from 30 to 50 arcsec.

Not sure if that is normal but looks bad. Also shows a large Dec backlash.

Beginning to think the mount is at fault but that first good night keeps me trying to solve the issue.

I have improved polar alignment using Sharpcap Pro  which says excellent and checked guide scope settings.

Initially this was 300mm when it should have been 180mm but this made no difference.

I am using a 50mm finder guider on a SW 80mm ed pro scope. (with 0.85 reducer)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Liam

[Brian Valente]

HI Liam

Bruce/Andy will give you some excellent advice im' sure

one thing that jumps out at me is the difference between your calibrations on the two guidelogs. The first one from October looks quite reasonable

however the calibration from November looks like the step sizes are too large

You might revisit your calibration, maybe even start your equipment profile new using the wizard and make sure everything is set up properly

Brian

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Brian 

Brian Valente

portfolio brianvalentephotography.com 

[peter wolsley]

Liam,

For your Nov 26th guide log it appears as if you never had East RA pulse guiding.  During both calibrations I can see the mount reacting to the RA West guide pulses but never responding to the RA East guide pulses.  You should try to use the Manual Guide tool in PHD2 to test your pulse guiding during the daytime (Just remember to turn off tracking while you perform testing in the daytime).  On several occasions during the night I also saw run-away conditions where the RA pulse guiding was sending the RA axis in the wrong directions causing it to take off at a very fast pace.  I noticed that for your mount you have selected ZWO USBST4.  You should look into controlling your mount using ASCOM.  If this is not desirable then consider replacing your ST4 cable.

Peter

[Liam O'Reilly]

Hi Peter  and Brian
Thanks for the replies and suggestions. I have setup in the house, put the scope to parked and testing with manual guide tool. I can hear the guide pulses driving the motors.
Just to clarify. The ZWO USBST4 is an adopter for ASCOM connection direct from the mount to the laptop, little box with usb in one side and st4 the other, it shows up as ZWO USBST4 (ASCOM) in the mount connection in PHD2. I have tried this connection method as well as the on camera (st4 from camera to mount).

With on camera connection there are no east movements.

With direct connection from laptop there is no west movement but east works. 

Very strange and I think looking like a driver issue.
I have tried different st4 and usb cables but still the same.
I have just got an eqdir cable so I can connect without the hand controller  but don't want to put that in the mix just yet.
I am going to try reinstalling ASCOM platform as some camera drivers were installed after the 14th Oct and may be the cause.
Liam

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Liam.  Just to clarify a point, this ZWO USBST4 (ASCOM) driver is a misnomer – it isn’t an ASCOM-compliant mount driver at all and provides no advantage over ST-4 guiding.  In fact, it’s worse than a conventional ST-4 connection because it precludes use of the ‘aux-mount’ feature in PHD2.  So your best bet will probably be to use the real EQASCOM mount driver, something that’s used by a majority of EQ mount users on the forum.  That will give you all the advantages of ASCOM guiding because PHD2 will have valid pointing information from the mount.  With a real ASCOM connection, these problems of no movement in a particular direction are extremely rare.

 

Good luck,

Bruce

 

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[Liam O'Reilly]

Hi Bruce

So if I connect with the eqdirect cable (Lynx Astro FTDI EQDIR USB Adapter) does that mean I don't use a separate cable into the mount guide port?

Is guiding then done over the eqdirect cable?

Thanks

Liam

[bw_msgboard]

Yes, that’s correct.  Nothing will be plugged into the guide port on the mount. When you are looking at setup info in EQASCOM, you’ll want to follow these guidelines:

 

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

 

I think it’s also very unlikely that there’s anything wrong with your ASCOM platform installation so there’s probably no need to re-install that.

[Liam O'Reilly]

Hi Bruce

Thanks for the advice.

I managed to get manual guiding working by removing all my ZWO drivers and reinstalling them after reinstalling PHD2.

I have now moved on and started to get EQMOD setup with the direct cable as this will be a better solution in the long run but have hit an issue.

I have been able to get connected in PHD2 and can get manual guide pulses in all directions.

Cartes du Ceil connects to the mount and slews fine.

APT connects to the mount ok and controls it fine.

The problem is when I connect the mount in APT and then try to connect to the mount in PHD2 for guiding I get a connect fail message saying port not available.

see attached.

It then does not respond to manual guide pulses.

Any thoughts on what to try?

Liam

On Thursday, 29 November 2018 21:17:16 UTC, Liam O'Reilly wrote:

[Liam O'Reilly]

Adding debug log for last try.

Liam

On Thursday, 29 November 2018 21:17:16 UTC, Liam O'Reilly wrote:

[Andy Galasso]

Liam,

That type of port error from an ASCOM driver usually indicates that one of the programs is set to run as Administrator -- you can't have some apps run as Administrator and others not.  The best approach is to make sure that none of the apps is set to run as Administrator.

Andy

checking if an app is running as administrator: https://superuser.com/questions/1213101/check-if-an-app-is-running-as-admin

[Liam O'Reilly]

Good call Andy.
I forgot I am running APT as administrator to get the cooling aid to work properly with my asi1600 camera. Starting PHD2 the same has sorted it until APT sort the bug.
Liam

[Bill Childs]

Liam,

Try starting PHD2 first, make all the equipment connections then open CdC and then open APT all as administrator. APt tries to connect to phd2 when it starts, if its not open already it wont connect.

 

[Liam O'Reilly]

Thanks everyone 

I was able to get set up last night and got guiding working.

I am now using eqmod and  plate solving with APT and PHD connected fine.

Followed the guidelines from Bruce and connection sequence from Bill.

A much cleaner setup and faster to get going.

Everything ran fine for a couple of hours and I was happy with the guiding.

Then I got runaway on RA with the guide pulses driving the mount in the wrong direction.

Spotted by Peter in one of my last logs.

See log section 9 at 01:17 of the uploaded log.

Stopped and restarted guiding and went back to normal.

Anyone seen this before and got any idea what was happening?

I also ran the Guiding assistant see section 8, would this be typical for an HEQ5 pro mount?

Liam

On Thursday, 29 November 2018 21:17:16 UTC, Liam O'Reilly wrote:

[Andy Galasso]

On Tue, Dec 4, 2018 at 5:46 PM Liam wrote:

I got runaway on RA with the guide pulses driving the mount in the wrong direction.

The guide star started moving off to the East at a rate of 15"/sec ... sidereal rate. In other words the RA axis stopped. (PHD2's west guide pulses were not moving the mount in the wrong direction, they were just having no effect at all.)

The run started with the scope pointed about 50 minutes before the meridian, and tracking stopped 53 minutes later. That says to me that the mount stopped when it hit a meridian limit.

Andy

[Liam O'Reilly]

Thanks Andy

Sounds like an EQMOD issue then, I thought it would have done a meridian flip?

I will check that out.

Liam

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Liam.  Mount firmware and ASCOM mount drivers don’t automatically do meridian flips.  That’s something you have to initiate yourself, manually, or use one of the more capable imaging apps.  If you’re trying to image a target that’s passed beyond the meridian, you just issue another slew command to the original target coordinates.  Since those coordinates then lie on the other side of the meridian, the mount will flip.

 

Hope this helps,

Bruce

 

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From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Liam O'Reilly
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2018 12:41 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding] Re: New HEQ5 pro mount guiding issues in RA

 

Thanks Andy

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[Brian Valente]

By way of example, Sequence Generator Pro pauses guiding, initiates the meridian flip, and then initiates a centering routine using plate solve to get the target back in place.

 

 

Thanks

 

Brian

 

portfolio https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/

[Liam O'Reilly]

Thanks Bruce  and Brian

Still learning, checked and APT are close to automating a meridian flip, version 3.6 beta due any day.

It currently has a meridian clock which I missed.

Depending on that I may jump to SGP.

Hopefully my next clear sky goes smoother.

Liam

On Thursday, 29 November 2018 21:17:16 UTC, Liam O'Reilly wrote: