Guiding Runs Away After NINA Meridian Flip

[Behyar Bakhshandeh]

Hi,

I have a pretty stable setup at a permanent observatory and pretty much follow the same process every imaging session.

But since last week, after NINA performs a meridian flip, my guiding runs away. I have imaged the same object (NGC 4145) for the last three nights, and it has happened every time. I tried all the suggestions I found online, including creating a new profile, but it is still happening.

Last night, I did some basic testing before letting NINA run through its script.

• Synced on a star in the eastern sky.
• Cleared the calibration.
• Went through the Calibration Assistant with default settings (Dec 0, Offset 5°, Pointing East).
• Let it guide for a bit and then slewed west to a spot past the meridian.
• It guided just fine with no runaway.
• Somewhere in there, I also performed the Guiding Assistant.

Then I let NINA run through its script for the night.

• It guided fine until the automatic meridian flip took place around 21:52.
• The guider ran away. I stopped it manually and restarted it, but then it ran away in the opposite direction.
• I performed another Calibration Assistant with default settings (Dec 0, Offset 5°, Pointing West).
• I restarted NINA, which did a Slew & Center to my object.
• The guider ran away again.
• This time, I did the Calibration Assistant at my object.
• The guider did not run away and worked fine all night.

My mount is an AP1200 with CP4 (Reverse Dec output after flip is off) and I guide via an OAG.

So I am at a loss as to why this just started happening. Hopefully, the pros here can spot something in these logs.

https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_u8Xo.zip

Thanks, and sorry for the wordy description.

Behyar

[Bruce Waddington]

@Behyar:  Is there any chance you have a rotator in front of the OAG?

Bruce

On Tuesday, May 12, 2026 at 6:52:09 PM UTC-7 John Rightten wrote:

I have exactly the same issue ! :) or similar if I do calibration using assistant the guider runs away after 2 minutes, if I do calibration near my target not using the assistant, no issues it can guide through the night

[Behyar Bakhshandeh]

There is a rotator in the imaging train in front of the FW.  Its not connected in PhD2.

In my NINA seq, I am only doing a Slew/Center without Rotate.  NINA logs don't show any movement on the rotator.

Behyar

[Brian Valente]

Hi Behyar

This may take some more analysis. 

You have a number of errors with your equipment including failure to capture images and move fails. 

Can you contact me directly, I want to see your mount logs as well.

Thanks

Brian

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open PHD Guiding" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-phd-guidi...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/20528c51-39f6-4030-9eab-eb88f210300bn%40googlegroups.com.

--

Brian 

Brian Valente

astronomy portfolio https://www.astrobin.com/users/bvalente/