PHD2 keeps losing guide star
Scott's Astrophotos
bw_msgboard
Hi Scott, sorry you ran into trouble. Can you tell us how these guide stars are being selected? Are you doing it manually or are you using an automation app like SGP? Could you please post your debug log file so we can see more of the details? Also, have you done a very careful job of focusing the guide camera? These finder-scopes usually have a very short focal ratio, so the margin for error on focus is equally small. Just offhand, the HFD values I see in the log look large to me. There’s a discussion in the Help docs about how to use the Star-Profile tool to reach a critical focus.
We should be able to tell you more when we see the debug log.
Bruce
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Scott's Astrophotos
Bryan
bw_msgboard
Hi Scott – see below.
From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Scott's Astrophotos
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2018
6:11 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re: PHD2 keeps losing guide star
Hi Bruce, thanks for the reply. What you are saying about needing to focus the guide camera makes sense cause I did notice that all the stars in phd2 display seemed a bit out of focus. I know what you mean about having small margin for error in focusing. i usually leave my guide camera connected to my finderscope for this reason, so it is possible that it could have been knocked a bit out of focus. So that could be the problem with the Star Lost - low mass issue I am having. Could this also affect guiding? My guiding has been horrid the last couple of outings I have had.
This can definitely affect your guiding because an out-of-focus star image is going to have a low signal-to-noise ratio. It basically means that PHD2 is going to have a harder time distinguishing the star disk from the background, so the position measurement will be less accurate and the star is more likely to be “lost”. That’s what happened in your case – the initial SNR of the selected star was at the bottom end of the range and the star was soon lost. I haven’t looked at your guiding performance aside from the lost-star problems, but I can do that if you want.
Yes I am using SGP to automatically turn on phd and select a guide star for me.
Also where is the debug log file located? I put a link in my original post to a log file. I thought this was the only log file created for phd guiding
The debug log is located in the same folder as the guide log and has the same date/timestamp in the filename. But since you’re running on a current dev release, you have an easier option:
This will display a window that lets you select which logs you want to upload to our server – nice and easy. Just be sure to capture the link so you can paste it into an e-mail or forum message.
If you re-focus your guide camera and still have problems with lost stars, it would be good to enable star-image logging:
With this enabled, we’ll be able to see exactly what PHD2 was seeing on the guide frame when the star was lost.
Hope this helps,
Bruce
On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 9:41:02 PM UTC-6, Scott's Astrophotos wrote:
Can someone look at my log file from tonight? For some reason phd keeps losing it's guide star in the middle of a session and that halts my imaging
Here is the log file
What can I change to keep phd from losing the guide star? I tried increasing the star mass detection setting and it didn't work
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Scott's Astrophotos
On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 9:41:02 PM UTC-6, Scott's Astrophotos wrote:
bw_msgboard
Hi Scott. It looks like you didn’t upload the correct debug log file. Guide and debug logs come in matching pairs and yours don’t match. The guide log you sent us was PHD2_GuideLog_2018-03-09_171410.txt. So the debug log file will be PHD2_DebugLog_2018-03-09_171410.txt. I really do want to see that debug log because there are some things that don’t look right in your setup.
Also, the short debug log you did send shows the updater determined the 2.6.4dev9 was installed and everything was up-to-date. Did you see the update dialog for that session – a very short one starting at 03:56 local time?
Thanks,
Bruce
From:
open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Scott's Astrophotos
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2018
12:13 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re:
PHD2 keeps losing guide star
Thanks for all the information you've provided Bruce! I'm pretty sure now that the issues I am having is because my guide cam moved a tad in the stopping ring. Here is the link to my debug file if you still want to look at it
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Scott's Astrophotos
On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 9:41:02 PM UTC-6, Scott's Astrophotos wrote:
bw_msgboard
Hi Scott, not a problem, this got the job done. It looks like there was something flopping around pretty badly, big spontaneous moves in both RA and Dec. Plus, many of the guide sessions in your log were running with Dec guiding completely disabled. If tightening the guide camera and refocusing doesn’t solve your problem, we’ll need to see a clean set of guide sessions. That means restoring all the guide params to their default settings (the ‘reset’ buttons in the Algorithms tab), then running the Guiding Assistant for 10-15 minutes so we can tell what your mount is doing. After that, just run an additional 10+ minute guiding session (guiding active) with no futzing around or changes – just let it run. Little runs of a few minutes or less are too short for us to see what’s going on.
Good luck,
Bruce
From:
open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Scott's Astrophotos
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2018
3:15 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re:
PHD2 keeps losing guide star
Sorry Bruce, this is my first time posting on this board and am new to how all this is done. This is the correct link to the debug and guide log
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Scott's Astrophotos
On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 9:41:02 PM UTC-6, Scott's Astrophotos wrote:
bw_msgboard
Hi Scott. Have you enabled the diagnostic star-logging I mentioned earlier in this thread? If so, you will have a set of images that we can look at to show what the guide star actually looks like. Each lost-star event will create a folder in the same directory as the normal guide and debug log files. If you post a link to those on a public file-share service (e.g. DropBox), we can see what’s going on. Also we need to see both the guide and debug log files that cover these events.
FWHM is a quantitative measure of the size of the star. It is determined by the image scale of your guiding system and by the guide camera focus. There is no “right value”, it depends on your system. We really need to look at the data to help you out on this.
Bruce
From:
open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Scott's Astrophotos
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2018
7:11 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re:
PHD2 keeps losing guide star
Hi Bruce I am running phd2 again tonight and I keep getting Looping showing in the Status Bar. It will calibrate for awhile, Sometimes it will go through the whole calibration and then it will all of a sudden say Looping or Star Lost.
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Scott's Astrophotos
On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 9:41:02 PM UTC-6, Scott's Astrophotos wrote:
bw_msgboard
From:
open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Scott's Astrophotos
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018
3:43 AM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re:
PHD2 keeps losing guide star
Bruce, I had a friend tell me it is a Windows 10 issue with the ASI120MC. I told him some of the issues I am having and he said he was having the same issues until someone on a forum told him it was a Windows 10 issue.
I still have my old laptop which has Windows 7 on it, will try using it next time out to see if it will work with that laptop. If it does then I know it is a Windows 10 issue.
I think it might be more likely to be a compatibility problem with the camera drivers. You need to be sure you’re running the latest ZWO-supplied drivers on whatever platform you’re using. Those have to be gotten from the ZWO web site, not something that happened to come with the camera.
No I didn't enable Diagnostic star logging. I forgot.
If you do run into problems again, we will need this info along with both the guide and debug log files.
Good luck,
Bruce
On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 9:41:02 PM UTC-6, Scott's Astrophotos wrote:
Can someone look at my log file from tonight? For some reason phd keeps losing it's guide star in the middle of a session and that halts my imaging
Here is the log file
What can I change to keep phd from losing the guide star? I tried increasing the star mass detection setting and it didn't work
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Brian Valente
I don’t know of any ASI camera specific issue with Windows 10
I think your friend was referring to a windows 10 update that was going around a few months ago that created some ASCOM software problems, but that was fixed in a subsequent windows update. You might want to ensure you have all the latest windows 10 patches installed.
Thanks
Brian
Brian Valente
Brianvalentephotography.com
Scott's Astrophotos
On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 9:41:02 PM UTC-6, Scott's Astrophotos wrote:
bw_msgboard
Ok, that’s good. But it doesn’t make it a Windows 10 issue necessarily – meaning it doesn’t make it a Microsoft problem. There are a couple of possibilities that come to mind. First, the camera drivers may not be current - it’s entirely likely there were updates specifically for Windows 10. Second, you’re using a different laptop, which means the USB hardware is different. You might have a problem with the USB ports on the new system – for example, the laptop may not be delivering enough power to the camera. And no doubt there are other possibilities as well.
If you’re happy using the Windows 7 laptop, then you’re good to go. But if you want to get back to the new laptop, you’ll probably have to do further trouble-shooting.
Good luck,
Bruce
From:
open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Scott's Astrophotos
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018
6:54 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re:
PHD2 keeps losing guide star
Bruce, I think it is a Windows 10 issue with the ASI120 cameras. I am imaging tonight on my Windows 7 laptop and everything is working great. I'm three frames into my imaging session and phd2 hasn't lost the guide star yet.
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Scott's Astrophotos
Ken Self
steve
Thanks for all the info you gave me Bruce. I'll eventually want to go back to my new laptop, I bought it for my astronomy programs. It could be the USB ports, the ASI camera is2.0
The old USB2 cameras need the firmware updating to enable them to work with USB3. The FW is here.
HTH and clear skies,
Steve
and the laptop is 3.0 so maybe that's it. Anyway thanks for your help!
Scott
riday, March 9, 2018 at 9:41:02 PM UTC-6, Scott's Astrophotos wrote:
Can someone look at my log file from tonight? For some reason phd keeps losing it's guide star in the middle of a session and that halts my imaging
Here is the log file
What can I change to keep phd from losing the guide star? I tried increasing the star mass detection setting and it didn't work
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