Little or no East movement

[michael_...@yahoo.com]

What are some of the more common causes for little or no movement East? All the cables seem good and are snag-free. I used the manual guiding to make sure the signals were getting through but couldn't tell if this was effective.

Michael

[Brian Valente]

Hi Michael

Can you please submit your guidelogs using the built-in log uploader so we can answer your questions

https://openphdguiding.org/getting-help/

On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 9:53 AM 'michael_...@yahoo.com' via Open PHD Guiding <open-phd...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

What are some of the more common causes for little or no movement East? All the cables seem good and are snag-free. I used the manual guiding to make sure the signals were getting through but couldn't tell if this was effective.

Michael

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Brian Valente

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[michael_...@yahoo.com]

Hi Brian,

I found the logs, but where is the uploader?

[michael_...@yahoo.com]

Here is the log:

https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_uyHr.zip

[Brian Valente]

Michael

what type of mount are you using? You are using on camera mount guiding, which has very little information on the equipment details

Also is 2800mm a correct focal length? 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/68ea7f75-f210-4bc7-9301-c335b3ea451an%40googlegroups.com.

[michael_...@yahoo.com]

So the mount is an AP 900 GTO3CP permanently pier-mounted. Guiding through a Taurus Tracker III OAG with an SVX Lodestar at 2800mm f10.

Michael

[Bruce Waddington]

The most obvious place to start on this is to replace the ST-4 guide cable.  Far better would be to eliminate that cable altogether and start guiding using the AP ASCOM mount driver and pulse-guiding.  Those choices and the benefits of using pulse-guiding are discussed in the User Guide:

https://openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Basic_use.htm#Mount_Selection

The majority of AP users use the pulse-guide method and the AP support folks are quite familiar with how to set it up.

Bruce

[michael_...@yahoo.com]

Many thanks, Bruce. I will definitely follow these recommendations. The sky might actually be clear tonight in New England!

Michael

[Bruce Waddington]

It's best to deal with the software configuration and setup during the daytime to avoid wasting time at night.  Get the ASCOM driver installed, get your USB-serial device installed if needed, then create a new configuration profile in PHD2 using the AP driver for the mount connection.  Even in the daytime, you can verify PHD2 is connecting to your mount although you won't be able to go much further without some guide stars.  If you install the PHD2 2.6.11dev6 release, you will also be ready to use the new Calibration Assistant at night to get your calibration done.  You might also want to take a look at the Best Practices document:

https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-best-practices/

Good luck,

Bruce

[michael_...@yahoo.com]

I got the mount connected to PHD2 but it doesn't seem to respond to move commands from V2 driver. The mount responds to commands from the hand controller. I am truly a newbie regarding how to control the mount from anything other than the hand controller.

[Bruce Waddington]

Are you still testing during the daytime?  You won't be able to see any obvious movement with pulse-guides, the speeds and durations are tiny.  If you aren't getting error messages from PHD2, you're probably ok.  If you want to do further testing during the daytime, we have a tool for that, a "MountExerciser" test application.  Instructions for installing and using it are in the folder, you can just copy all the files into whatever local folder suits you.  It's very simple, really nothing to it, but it will exercise the pulse-guiding interface in the same way PHD2 does.  If you don't see error messages and the mount coordinates window shows changes in position, all should be well.
 
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Amy5FkXK3OuQgnKd1-7Er-5P3Iad?e=LwPrme

Good luck,

Bruce

[michael_...@yahoo.com]

Thank you so much. Miracle of miracles and persistence paid off. I finally was able to connect the camera and the mount. Thank you also for the mount exerciser program. It did the trick. Now I am hoping for a clear night.

Michael