Lost guide star, can't figure out why.

[Paul Goelz]

Well, after years of trouble free operation, PHD2 stopped guiding last night and I can't figure out why.  I was watching the guide graph and towards the end of the session I noticed DEC and RA started to wander off and did not come back.  When I looked at PHD2, all the guide stars were dotted orange circles and it was apparently not guiding.  Note that there was NO error message onscreen.... just the dotted circles.  

I hit STOP, then hit the select guide star icon and PHD2 selected new guide stars.  I hit START and it started guiding again, and continued successfully to the end of the session.  

I noticed that before guiding stopped, the displayed HFD was in the area of 3.5.  This is a bit high for this guide scope but the seeing was terrible and I put it down to seeing.  But after I reselected the guide stars, the displayed HFD was in the area of 2.5, which is normal for this guide scope.  

Can someone point me in the right direction?  Guide logs are at this link:

https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_E4Mw.zip

I did my best to look through the log and I think the issue occurred around 22:14.  It looks like the program encountered a capture error getting a frame from the camera?  I'm assuming for now that this is a PC issue?  Is there anything else of note to help troubleshoot this?  

But why would simply selecting a new guide star of similar ADU cause the displayed HFD to drop so noticeably?  Again, seeing was terrible, but.....

TIA,

Paul

[bw_m...@earthlink.net]

This happened because your automation app – whichever one it is – told PHD2 to stop guiding (the “evsrv” log entries show communications with an automation app):

 

22:14:04.148 00.002 10008 evsrv: cli 0D5C0BC0 request: {"id":"6","method":"stop_capture"}

22:14:04.150 00.002 10008 StopCapturing CaptureActive=1 continueCapturing=1 exposurePending=1

 

The “camera error” messages you saw in the log are just side-effects of the “stop capture” operation, entirely normal.  At 22:13:34, it looks like you got things going again manually but your automation app was still not on the same page as you.  At 22:25:57, it did the same thing again, told PHD2 to stop guiding:

 

22:25:57.819 00.002 10008 evsrv: cli 0D5C1520 request: {"id":"6","method":"stop_capture"}

22:25:57.821 00.002 10008 StopCapturing CaptureActive=1 continueCapturing=1 exposurePending=1

 

So you will have to figure out why the automation app was doing this.  That information will hopefully be contained in a log file produced by the app.

 

As for the HFD change, the manual auto-select didn’t choose exactly the same stars as the set that was chosen 2 hours earlier, also not surprising.  SNR and HFD values can be fairly volatile on nights of poor seeing.

 

Good luck,

Bruce

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[Paul Goelz]

On 11/7/2022 11:14 AM, bw_m...@earthlink.net wrote:
> This happened because your automation app – whichever one it is – told
> PHD2 to stop guiding (the “evsrv” log entries show communications with
> an automation app):
>
> 22:14:04.148 00.002 10008 evsrv: cli 0D5C0BC0 request:
> {"id":"6","method":"stop_capture"}
>
> 22:14:04.150 00.002 10008 StopCapturing CaptureActive=1
> continueCapturing=1 exposurePending=1

Thanks, I'll have to look into that. The automation program was NINA. I
believe there may have been a pending autofocus in the queue but NINA is
configured to NOT stop guiding during an autofocus so that is puzzling.

It is possible that I stopped the sequencer before I looked at PHD2.....
that could explain why guiding had stopped when I looked at PHD2.
Doesn't explain why RA and DEC wandered off by 3-4 arcseconds though. It
was windy but not THAT windy.

During the first part of the night I noticed that the displayed guide
star image was very slightly elongated on a diagonal. I thought that
was puzzling since it was consistent from image to image. Is it
possible PHD2 chose as a guide star a very close double star that it
treated as a single star? Would that affect guiding in any way or would
it simply use the center of the ovoid? It would also explain why the
displayed HFD was higher than expected.

In any event, thanks! That narrows it down enough to continue
troubleshooting.

Paul

--
Paul Goelz
Rochester Hills, MI USA
pa...@pgoelz.com
www.pgoelz.com


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Paul Goelz
Rochester Hills, MI USA
pgoe...@gmail.com
www.pgoelz.com

[Ana Ta]

WOW!

It is similar to my problem, and the same day. Happened only once after I start using NINA. 

In NINA, we could make choice: "stop guiding" during autofocus. It is necessity when OAG is used, but it may not be essential when guide scope is used. 

All the best!

Armen

[Brian Valente]

I'm not sure why NINA doesn't pause guiding while focusing, like some other automation apps do. 

During AF NINA is either stop guiding or continue guiding

makes for choppy guidelogs

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[bw_m...@earthlink.net]

It's generally a bad idea to try to continue guiding through an auto-focus operation, you will typically lose stars. It's better to either pause/resume or stop/start guiding around the focus operation. The primary star that was originally selected did have a higher HFD than the secondary stars so it's possible it was a "close binary". The auto-find operation didn't perceive them as two separate objects. That wouldn't degrade guiding unless the "secondary" star was an area of sensor noise.

Bruce

-----Original Message-----
From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com <open-phd...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Paul Goelz

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[Paul Goelz]

On 11/7/2022 11:55 AM, bw_m...@earthlink.net wrote:
> It's generally a bad idea to try to continue guiding through an auto-focus operation, you will typically lose stars. It's better to either pause/resume or stop/start guiding around the focus operation. The primary star that was originally selected did have a higher HFD than the secondary stars so it's possible it was a "close binary". The auto-find operation didn't perceive them as two separate objects. That wouldn't degrade guiding unless the "secondary" star was an area of sensor noise.
>
> Bruce

I can see why guiding could be disturbed during an autofocus when using
an OAG. But is it also not recommended to continue guiding during
autofocus if a separate guidescope is used? If so, what is the
reasoning? I would assume that with a separate guidescope, guiding
during autofocus would be a good thing.....

For now, I'll chalk the loss of guiding up to a curiosity and see what
happens next time.

Paul

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Paul Goelz
Rochester Hills, MI USA

pgoe...@gmail.com
www.pgoelz.com

[Jason Schella]

I agree with Brian about pausing guiding with NINA. I assume that when guiding is paused, and one is using PPEC algorithm, that PhD2 doesn't have to "relearn" the periodic error?

Jason

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[Bill Davis]

I have to expose my ignorance - I'm new to NINA and PHD2 - is there a setting I'm missing in either NINA or PHD2 to stop guiding while executing the autofocus operation? I looked in the PD2 settings and didn't see anything obvious, same with all the functions in NINA, including the simple Sequencer configuration that I'm using.

Thanks!

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[Brian Valente]

Bill that's a NINA feature, you need to ask over at the NINA discord server (or any of the user groups)

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[Paul Goelz]

On 11/7/2022 1:47 PM, Bill Davis wrote:
> I have to expose my ignorance - I'm new to NINA and PHD2 - is there a
> setting I'm missing in either NINA or PHD2 to stop guiding while
> executing the autofocus operation? I looked in the PD2 settings and
> didn't see anything obvious, same with all the functions in NINA,
> including the simple Sequencer configuration that I'm using.
>
> Thanks!

Bill,

It is in the NINA menu. Look under OPTIONS > AUTOFOCUS. There is a
toggle to turn "disable guiding during autofocus" on or off. Turning
the option ON = guiding disabled during autofocus.

[Ana Ta]

It has to pause, if you have OAG. Otherwise, pausing is not necessity. 

Yes, it chops guidelogs. 

[Ana Ta]

Yes, there is setting in NINA.

In "Option" domain, go to "autofocus" page and there is an option of "on or off" for stop guiding during autofocus.

All the best!

[Brian Valente]

>>>It has to pause, if you have OAG. Otherwise, pausing is not necessity.

NINA stops guiding, it does not pause. There's a difference there

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[Jason Schella]

Brian,

When PhD2 pauses guiding, does it remember the PEC model it has built up, or does it start over (as if guiding stopped instead of paused)?

Thanks, 

Jason

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[Scott Badger]

> NINA stops guiding, it does not pause. There's a difference there

To that point, when the stop guiding option is enabled, NINA will also *start* guiding after an auto-focus even if guiding wasn't enabled beforehand. FWIW

[Brian Valente]

>>>When PhD2 pauses guiding, does it remember the PEC model it has built up, or does it start over (as if guiding stopped instead of paused)?

Bruce has the definitive answer. I believe it retains the model, but it's changed over time, so i'm not 100% sure how it works right now. 

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[Bill Davis]

So here is what I think is happening. First, in NINA I have correctly enabled pause guiding during autofocus - thanks to Ana for making me look.

I think the problem is how I have the ZWO camera drivers assigned in the PHD2 Camera Connect setting. Currently, I have the "ZWO Camera" assigned to the "Camera" field. I found another PHD2 Forum conversation related to two ZWO cameras. In that thread there is this diagram:

The lightbulb came on, I hope - I think this is what Brian was alluding to about two ZWO cameras: I now have this Camera Connect setting:

ZWO ASI Camera is now assigned to the ASI120mm mini.

Please let me know if I'm on the right path.

Thanks for all the help and guidance.

Bill

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