NEW OAG AND ASI174MINI

[Don Waters]

I have a new ASI174 and Celestron OAG with my Celestron 9.25" (non-Edge) on CGEM mount. I have had decent results guiding wirth ASI220mini and 200mm guide scope but I wanted to improve,

This new combination will not calibrate. I get errors that PulseCommand not recognized.

Attached are logs.

I tried several things based on what AI Copilot said, but no suceess.

Help.

Thanks, 

Don

https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_tXeH.zip

[Bruce Waddington]

I don't think we can do anything with this.  When you switch from a separate guide scope to an OAG, you have changed everything about the guiding system.  That's why it's imperative that you start over by running the new-profile-wizard to define the new configuration.  Using the old profile and selectively banging away at various parameters just creates a mess.  So you need to start over.   You need to be sure the guide camera is critically focused (which it probably isn't), that it's tightly fastened in the OAG and the OAG/camera can't move around or rotate when the scope moves.  You should bin the guide camera 2x2 to increase the guider image scale a bit, create a new dark library, and use the Calibration Assistant to try and get your first usable calibration.  You have to be sure the scope is well-balanced with the new configuration and has no binding or dragging cables.  If the calibration doesn't produce at least a roughly perpendicular movement on the RA and Dec axes, use the Star-Cross test to work out what's preventing the mount from responding correctly.  If it's really the same mount you were using before, there's no reason it shouldn't respond to guide commands.  If you have a traditional SCT optical system, it will probably have substantial field curvature, making it harder to get good guide stars.

Bruce

[Don Waters]

Thank you very much. 

After reading your excellent reply, I used Microsoft Copilot and got a lot of background information on how this works and some specific settings for each camera.

I do not have Edge, so I will bear up for now, but Copilot suggests that PhD2 can handle some of that because of centroid measurement. I know that my equipment is not ideal and I may replace the OTA or possibly a whole new refractor system. However, I am trying to first learn the multiple factors involved for this hobby. I have learned that there are no shortcuts. 

[Brian Valente]

Don

slightly off topic but you mentioned:

>>>>I do not have Edge, so I will bear up for now, but Copilot suggests that PhD2 can handle some of that because of centroid measurement.

Guiding doesn't impact field curvature, Copilot is inaccurate on this topic. 

An optical flattener or reducer would help that, such as from starizona. 

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Brian 

Brian Valente

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[Tom van Peer]

Don,

Just my $0.02: I would like to encourage you to read the different PHD2 docs, they are really excellent and I learnt a lot from them. Unless you are very good in writing AI prompts, Copilot will give you a 'statistically desirable' answer, which may be correct, or not. 

Tom.