HAE29 mount - guiding is really bad

[Matt Simmons]

I am hoping that someone here can help me interpret the PHD2 logs from my last session with my new iOptron HAE29 - strain wave mount. iOptron is saying "do better at PHD2". I think the mount may be faulty. For background, I have been doing AP for 2 years with eq mount setups (AVX then EQ6). I never had to do anything more than calibrate, GA and go with my Eq6 and I would always get sub 1" total RMS results with guiding, often down to .5". But I needed a setup that wasn't so bulky and heavy since I am getting old and I have to image 100% at a remote site.

The setup on this night was 135mm Rokinon f2 lens, ASI533MC Pro, 120mm guidescope and an ASI120MM mini. Not exactly a heavy payload.

[Brian Valente]

Hi Matt

>>>iOptron is saying "do better at PHD2".

was there anything specific they recommended?

On Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 6:46 AM Matt Simmons <msimmo...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am hoping that someone here can help me interpret the PHD2 logs from my last session with my new iOptron HAE29 - strain wave mount. iOptron is saying "do better at PHD2". I think the mount may be faulty. For background, I have been doing AP for 2 years with eq mount setups (AVX then EQ6). I never had to do anything more than calibrate, GA and go with my Eq6 and I would always get sub 1" total RMS results with guiding, often down to .5". But I needed a setup that wasn't so bulky and heavy since I am getting old and I have to image 100% at a remote site.

The setup on this night was 135mm Rokinon f2 lens, ASI533MC Pro, 120mm guidescope and an ASI120MM mini. Not exactly a heavy payload.

--
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 on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/0c64ea65-3402-4b14-a0a8-6a37ac5365e3n%40googlegroups.com.

--

Brian 

Brian Valente

astro portfolio https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/astrophotography/

portfolio brianvalentephotography.com 

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

[Brian Valente]

Well iOptron may have something there

your min moves are around 2.5" so you aren't going to be effective trying for lower rms. both RA and Dec are just wandering around within those generous parameters

so a few things:

- i would revisit your min moves and reduce them considerably. It seems like there's plenty of room in there for improvement

- is there a reason you are using bin 2? seems like an extremely coarse image scale

- Is there a reason you are using ppec? i don't use a strain wave mount, but everything i've seen suggests there isn't really a clear periodic error to correct. It looks like you are strong-arming it with very short 1/2 second exposures

On Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 6:46 AM Matt Simmons <msimmo...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am hoping that someone here can help me interpret the PHD2 logs from my last session with my new iOptron HAE29 - strain wave mount. iOptron is saying "do better at PHD2". I think the mount may be faulty. For background, I have been doing AP for 2 years with eq mount setups (AVX then EQ6). I never had to do anything more than calibrate, GA and go with my Eq6 and I would always get sub 1" total RMS results with guiding, often down to .5". But I needed a setup that wasn't so bulky and heavy since I am getting old and I have to image 100% at a remote site.

The setup on this night was 135mm Rokinon f2 lens, ASI533MC Pro, 120mm guidescope and an ASI120MM mini. Not exactly a heavy payload.

--

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 on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/0c64ea65-3402-4b14-a0a8-6a37ac5365e3n%40googlegroups.com.

[Matt Simmons]

so a few things:

- i would revisit your min moves and reduce them considerably. It seems like there's plenty of room in there for improvement

• Ok I will try that. I was relying on default settings and GA so I can fine tune. Any suggestions on what to set those at?

- is there a reason you are using bin 2? seems like an extremely coarse image scale

• My mistake - I sometimes go to Bin2 so that I can see the stars better for focusing. must have not set it back. Would BIN2 affect guiding performance?

- Is there a reason you are using ppec? i don't use a strain wave mount, but everything i've seen suggests there isn't really a clear periodic error to correct. It looks like you are strong-arming it with very short 1/2 second exposures

• PPEC was a suggestion I got from another source. They suggested that PPEC could "learn" the PE of the mount and improve guiding results. I did notice it guided slightly better after PPEC ran for 10 mins or so. The .5s exposures was suggested by others and iOptron so that PHD could react faster to fluctuations in the mount due to it being a strain wave. I didn't notice a significant improvement after lowering the exposure time. On my EQ6 I would set the exposures at 1.5"=3" so it wasn't chasing seeing conditions.

Thanks for the suggestions - hopefully I get some clearing soon so I can test your suggestions.