PHD2 does not change Dec and RA direction corrections after a meridian flip

[jose miguel]

Hello everyone. On other occasions I have commented on the problem I have with the meridian flip in the middle of an astrophotography session. I use NINA software to control the mount (Paramount and The Sky X pro), the camera (ASI2400), the guiding camera (with PHD2 software), and the focuser. The problem I have is that after a meridian flip, the guiding software (PHD2) does not reverse the direction of the corrections in Dec or AR and therefore the guiding star is moving away from the center with each correction so it ends up getting lost.

I don't know if all this has to do with the fact that it seems that the Paramount does not report to NINA software which side of the pier the telescope is.

Last night I was trying several options which I summarize below:

a) Enabling the option "invert Dec value after meridian flip" (let's call it option A for simplicity) and also the option "Autoreverse X for GEMS" in the camera settings in The Sky X software (let's call it option B for simplicity).

b) Enabling A and disabling B

c) Disabling A and enabling B

d) Disabling A and disabling B

With none of these combinations I got the guiduing software (PHD2) to change the direction of the corrections in Dec and AR after making a meridian flip. Meridian flip was activated by myself from the The Sky X software (option "Flip mount now" in the telescope control options).

All this led me to think that for PHD2 to change the guiding corrections in Dec and AR after the flipping the mount, it must necessarily know that the mount made a meridian flip. So I think that maybe the problem is that, for some reason I don't know, PHD2 doesn't know that the mount has made a meridian flip and thus there is no need to change the direction of Dec and AR corrections.

 

What do you think?

[jose miguel]

Sorry, I forgot to attach de PHD2 debug log from last night

[Bruce Waddington]

PHD2 needs side-of-pier information in order to automatically correct for a meridian flip.  You probably haven't configured the Software Bisque plug-in correctly:

https://github.com/OpenPHDGuiding/phd2/wiki/SkyX-Settings

With current versions of Paramount software, you need to set the 'reverse dec' option in PHD2.  I don't know what settings NINA requires for this - I think your best starting point would be to reset it to the default value in NINA.

Good luck,

Bruce

[jose miguel]

Thanks so much Bruce for your help. I revised the settings of the SB Paramount in PHD2 and did not have the "Can get pointing state" enabled- After enabling this option and the "reverse dec" option in the advanced settings forthe camera, it worked!!. After doing this, NINA gets the information of the side of pier from the Paramount and after flipping the mount the guiding keeps going OK!

So, I tried last night to photograph different point near the meridian, starting with the scope in the west side so thta after a couple of subframes the system hadto do a meridian flip inorder to continue shooting. But for some reason Ido not know the socpe did not flip. There was no error message from the "meridina flip" process in NINA, but simply when arriving at the "flip scope" step of the process the system assumed the flipping had in fact taken place. However the scope did not move. The "meridian flip" process continued wuth the next steps until the end as if everything worked OK.

Do not know if this has something to do with the modification of the settings in PHD2. 

[Bruce Waddington]

Your imaging app is in control of when to do a meridian flip, PHD2 has nothing to do with that.  Most apps like NINA will have configurable settings for when this should be done, so I would start looking there.  You also need to be aware of any meridian tracking limits in the mount driver or firmware, those may stop mount tracking before an app can do the meridian flip.

Good luck,

Bruce

[Jose Benito]

Yes, I agree with you Bruce and likely It has nothing to fo with PHD2. What is strange is that in the past the meridiano flipo procesos did work and then scope was flipped from one side to the other. The problema then was that the guiding duda not work after the flip because corrections were made un the opposite directions. Now that I have solved this problem with your help, the flipping does not work!! This is why I thought It could hace something to do with PHD2

Jose Miguel Benito M.D. PhD.
Instituto de Investigacion Sanitaria-Fundacion Jimenez Diaz UAM
Hospital Universitario Rey Juan Carlos
C/ Gladiolo s/n - 28933 Mostoles, Madrid, Spain
Tel: 914816225 Ext. 50294

---

From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com <open-phd...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Bruce Waddington <bw_m...@earthlink.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2023 4:42 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding <open-phd...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [open-phd-guiding] Re: PHD2 does not change Dec and RA direction corrections after a meridian flip

 

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