Help with PhD2 settings when using ST4 guiding

[Avi]

Hello All,

I am new to this group and fairly new to PhD2 autoguiding (or for that matter just autoguiding!!). 

My equipment:

Losmandy GM8: old school push to with a 492 Digital Drive unit. 

Guide Camera: ASI 120MM-S 

Guide Scope: SVBony 30mm F4

Connections: (a) Guide camera to Windows Laptop (or ASiAir) using the USB3.0 port on the camera (b) Guide camera to 492 Digital drive unit using the ST4 port and RJ12 cable. 

My limited autoguiding experience has been with the ASiAir where I know it works, but does not give me the level of detail I am seeking to make systematic improvements to my tracking performance. Hence my desire to focus on using PhD2. 

My specific question is around how exactly to set up the mount in PhD2.  

The camera is obvious. PhD2 recognizes the ZWO camera automatically so no worries there. 

For the mount: should I set it up as On Camera? (I use On camera ST4 when using ASiAir). 

The Aux mount is the one where I am most confused. I currently have it set to ask for coordinates, but can't quite decipher how best to use it after going through the PhD2 manual. 

I did the above and got through guide calibration last night (although calibration was poor, but that is a different story), but wonder if I have it setup properly. 

Would really appreciate any guidance here. 

Many thanks!

Avi

[Brian Valente]

Hi Avi

fancy meeting you here ;)

The simplest approach would be to recalibrate for each new target. The 492 controller is not GoTo, so it cannot be used as an aux mount

The approach of using "ask for coordinates" is that you are essentially playing the role of providing the new target's coordinates, which PHD uses to adjust its calculations for guiding.

I hope that makes sense

Brian

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Brian Valente

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

[Avishek Aiyar]

Hi Brian,

I was hoping to run into you here (as well) :). 

Here is what I did last night:

1. Attempted a guide calibration at the right location (scope roughly pointed to intersection of celestial equator and meridian). 

2. I recorded exact location by doing a plate solve in Sharpcap. 

3. Setup Aux mount as "ask for coordinates" and entered the Dec coordinate I got from Sharpcap 

4. Start calibration. 

Honestly, it's not a big deal recalibrating each time, but at this point I am just curious more than anything else. :) . I am perfectly fine not setting up an Aux mount. 

Is On Camera the right setting for the mount? 

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[Brian Valente]

That all sounds good. Are you running into issues or is it working?

>>>I am perfectly fine not setting up an Aux mount.

that's good, because the 492 has no notion of sky position, so this is exactly the scenario 'ask for coordinates' was designed to handle.

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[Avishek Aiyar]

Hey Brian 

I think it's working but I will know for sure tonight or tomorrow night when I get a chance to re run calibration using PhD2. I ran into some idiotic user induced issues last night.

Avi 

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[Brian Valente]

>>>I ran into some idiotic user induced issues last night.

Yes, it's always something  ;)

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[Avishek Aiyar]

Still a long way to go but thought I'd share intermediate results : https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_Xccd.zip

Multiple calibration attempts: Mostly because I was tinkering and learning different settings but also because it was a bit of a nightmare with constant cloud movement. Not to mention constant connection issues where phd2 kept dropping the connection to the camera. 

Maybe one good chunk of data collection is from 22:22 to 22:27. I calibrated and then ran 

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[Avishek Aiyar]

tech issues continue! I am starting to wonder its my windows tablet! 

I calibrated and ran a guided session for a while. Things looked fantastic for a while and not sure what happened , but at some point tracking went absolutely haywire. But would appreciate it if you could review the log and see if there is enough info to provide insights into any systematic mount issues. 

Slowly but surely I think I a, getting the hang of this but I need to resolve the connection issues. Wonder if pulse guiding with gpusb might come in handy here ? Either way I think need 1-2 more guiding sessions to nail this. 

Thanks! 

Avi