Using the main Imaging Camera and PHD2 to Assess Need to Guide

[Howard Maron]

I operate several systems. This is in reference to a one particular system that I currently operate unguided. It is a Tak FSQ on a 10Micron2000. The imaging camera, a Moravian (IMX455), has an OAG on it but no guide camera has ever been placed in the port. The guiding looks excellent to my eye even on my 10min subs.  So....could utilizing PHD2 help me assess the likelihood that I might benefit from "installing" a guider in the port. 

I ask this in my never ending quest to improve upon this wonderful setup. Could PHD be helpful in this situation? By connecting PHD to the imaging camera, might it help me assess the details of the actual tracking? 

Adding a guide camera to the OAG port would be simple but I am interested in your thoughts of using PHD2 as an objective measure and therefore an inspiration to do it. The seeing in the system's location is average at best.

Is this a silly notion? Am I overlooking the obvious?

[Brian Valente]

Hi Howard

>>>This is in reference to a one particular system that I currently operate unguided.

>>>The guiding looks excellent to my eye even on my 10min subs 

On the second point I assume your "guiding looks excellent" means the tracking/resulting image? You aren't guiding right now, correct?

It's not a bad question.

There are a couple ways PHD may help you assess your mount performance. The first is to disable guide output to measure your actual mount performance as you do unguided imaging. You need a guide camera and you can let PHD run without actually doing any guide pulse corrections (disable mount guide output in the advanced settings)

The second way is you can just guide and see the results. You'll want to set up PHD with the encoder mount variant settings, it's explained in this video (it's an Astro-Physics video, but the basic setup points are the same for a 10micron): https://youtu.be/wCu8PKjDZ20 

That all being said, if you are happy with 10 min unguided subs, and the eccentricity is where you want it, I don't know if it will really make much difference for you. PHD is a great piece of software for guiding, but adding guiding means more hardware and software you have to manage and potentially troubleshoot.

Brian

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open PHD Guiding" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-phd-guidi...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/92da0955-2532-432c-9c75-06d92a0cbadfn%40googlegroups.com.

--

Brian 

Brian Valente

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

nature portfolio brianvalentephotography.com 

other astronomy https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/astrophotography/ 

[Mark McComiskey]

I have tried this using my QHY600 main imaging camera.  I get a memory error....

[Brian Valente]

The QHY600 is way too big for a guiding, you'll need the guide camera setup, which is why i mentioned

>>>  You need a guide camera and you can let PHD run without actually doing any guide pulse corrections (disable mount guide output in the advanced settings)

Alternately, you can try heavily binning it, but you'll take a hit on your image scale

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/68db67ee-af1b-420d-b4b1-431f342a1470n%40googlegroups.com.

[Howard Maron]

Thanks to all. I considered the possibility/probability of a download error with the QHY600. (I currently, as I type, do not have PHD at my disposal). I had assumed (recalled) PHD had a ROI setting to overcome this obstacle.

Brian, to your quote: 

"but adding guiding means more hardware and software you have to manage and potentially troubleshoot"

True ! Though I chuckled since we love to mess around by nature.  And doing so is so simple with our today's acquisition software. I might also argue that using software (PHD) to establish that guiding will unlikely not benefit an unguided system is a positive step toward leaving the system as is. 

Thanks for the links also

Sorry, this was all in the spirit of brainstorming.

H

[Mark McComiskey]

Isn't his kind of assessment exactly what Guiding Assistant does?  With a lot of detailed information on the performance on each axis?

[Dale Ghent]

You can try instead to have PHD2 run the camera with bin2 binning in order to reduce the image array size to manageable levels. I believe what you're running into is a limitation imposed on 32bit apps and Windows GDI memory limits.

> On Apr 30, 2024, at 16:21, Mark McComiskey <mccom...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have tried this using my QHY600 main imaging camera. I get a memory error....
>
> On Tuesday, April 30, 2024 at 11:45:42 AM UTC-4 bval...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi Howard
>
> >>>This is in reference to a one particular system that I currently operate unguided.
> >>>The guiding looks excellent to my eye even on my 10min subs
>
> On the second point I assume your "guiding looks excellent" means the tracking/resulting image? You aren't guiding right now, correct?
>
> It's not a bad question.
>
> There are a couple ways PHD may help you assess your mount performance. The first is to disable guide output to measure your actual mount performance as you do unguided imaging. You need a guide camera and you can let PHD run without actually doing any guide pulse corrections (disable mount guide output in the advanced settings)
>
>

> The second way is you can just guide and see the results. You'll want to set up PHD with the encoder mount variant settings, it's explained in this video (it's an Astro-Physics video, but the basic setup points are the same for a 10micron): https://youtu.be/wCu8PKjDZ20
> That all being said, if you are happy with 10 min unguided subs, and the eccentricity is where you want it, I don't know if it will really make much difference for you. PHD is a great piece of software for guiding, but adding guiding means more hardware and software you have to manage and potentially troubleshoot.
>
> Brian
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 30, 2024 at 8:36 AM Howard Maron <howard...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I operate several systems. This is in reference to a one particular system that I currently operate unguided. It is a Tak FSQ on a 10Micron2000. The imaging camera, a Moravian (IMX455), has an OAG on it but no guide camera has ever been placed in the port. The guiding looks excellent to my eye even on my 10min subs. So....could utilizing PHD2 help me assess the likelihood that I might benefit from "installing" a guider in the port.
>
> I ask this in my never ending quest to improve upon this wonderful setup. Could PHD be helpful in this situation? By connecting PHD to the imaging camera, might it help me assess the details of the actual tracking?
>
> Adding a guide camera to the OAG port would be simple but I am interested in your thoughts of using PHD2 as an objective measure and therefore an inspiration to do it. The seeing in the system's location is average at best.
>
> Is this a silly notion? Am I overlooking the obvious?
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open PHD Guiding" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-phd-guidi...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/92da0955-2532-432c-9c75-06d92a0cbadfn%40googlegroups.com.
>
>
> --
> Brian
>
>
>
> Brian Valente
> astronomy portfolio https://www.astrobin.com/users/bvalente/ nature portfolio brianvalentephotography.com
> other astronomy https://www.brianvalentephotography.com/astrophotography/
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open PHD Guiding" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-phd-guidi...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/68db67ee-af1b-420d-b4b1-431f342a1470n%40googlegroups.com.

[Brian Valente]

Mark

>>>Isn't his kind of assessment exactly what Guiding Assistant does?  With a lot of detailed information on the performance on each axis?

Yes, and that's another way to do this, although that's a one time thing at a specific sky position. 

I suggested disabling guiding because he wanted to know how his mount was performing presumably across an imaging session including multiple targets and sky positions. Running PHD without guide output would give that kind of output.

I thought of suggesting that but i don't recall why i opted for unguided suggestion ;)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/911a0041-6490-42ee-b2a7-935f0d0a312cn%40googlegroups.com.

[mccom...@gmail.com]

I like that.  I will need to give that a try.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Open PHD Guiding" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/open-phd-guiding/l9XR8f2RKrA/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to open-phd-guidi...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-phd-guiding/CAJa45i5pbguyGTPM4dZkSDLtBhBnyxGiM3rs2vByPK_TFNCc%3DA%40mail.gmail.com.