AM5 Mount Best Practices

[Tim Stevenson]

Attached is the log file from an evening operating my AM5 mount.  It includes a calibration and a Guiding Assistant.  The first section saw guiding of 0.96" Total RMS ... the second section saw that increase to 1.58" Total RMS.  I then ran Guiding Assistant and the guiding improved to 0.85" Total RMS.  Better but not where I think it could be.  I have been looking for recommendations for AM5 mounts and seem to have conflicting recommendations.  

A summary of the settings from Nov 22 PHD2 are:

Guide Exposure-     3s

Guide Rate- 0.5x
Dec/Ra Max Duration-  2500ms
Dec/Ra Aggressions- 100%/60%
MinMo- 0.18 / 0.12

On CloudyNights I found a posting from Kevin_A with the following recommendations:

Guide Exposure-     1s
Guide Rate- 0.5x
Dec/Ra Max Durations-    500ms
Dec/Ra Aggressions-   50%
MinMo- 0.1

Brian, several times in the forum I have seen you recommend very aggressive guiding for strain wave mounts which seems to conflict with Kevin's recommendations.

What are your recommendations for strain wave mounts and in particular the AM5?

My log files are here:  https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_JLKE.zip

Thank you

Tim Stevenson

[Brian Valente]

Tim

Brief comment:

>>>>Brian, several times in the forum I have seen you recommend very aggressive guiding for strain wave mounts which seems to conflict with Kevin's recommendations.

I seem to have created some confusion about this. By aggressive I primarily mean guiding cadence: short exposures times of 0.5-1 second. This is contrasted with a well behaved encoder mount that may need guiding cadence of more like once every 10 seconds.

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Brian Valente

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

[Bruce Waddington]

Hi Tim.  Here's what I suggest:
1. Update to the current version of PHD2 - the release you're using is nearly 5 years old
2.  Create a new profile using the new-profile-wizard.  Leave the guiding parameter settings alone
3.  Use the Calibration Assistant to get a fresh calibration in the preferred part of the sky.
4.  Set your guide exposure time to 1 second
5.  Staying in the same part of the sky, run the Guiding Assistant for about 15 minutes
6.  Stop the Guiding Assistant and let the system guide for another 15 minutes

Upload your logs and we'll take a look at how your system is performing.

Good luck,

Bruce