Following on from my previous topic (sorry for the re-topic)
If I do hundreds or thousands of exposures of very few seconds or just one second, obviously I do not need any system of guiding, but since the polar alignment will not be a perfect alignment (ains), gradually, the exposures will be sliding… What if there was possible an automatic option that paused the event every X exposures, re-centering the target and then continued with the exposures?
Thank you again for your attention.
This might be able to be accomplished by making multiple targets in a sequence of the same exact Target your shooting. Causing a plate solve and re-centering each time. Instead of 100 subs of the same target, do 5 (same) targets 20 subs each etc.
Maybe a work around for you
Dan
+1
This feature could also be kind of "re-center every X hours"
Because the drift always (Murphy’s law?) occurs in the wrong direction, I always end up cropping the wrong side of the stacked frame for a good looking balanced/centered target.
Thanks!
Olivier
I would find this very very useful. Just two nights ago despite having good solid guidance over the course of 4 hours my target drifted in RA enough that I had to chop 250 px from the left side of my image. A periodic recenter would have prevented me from losing so much of the image. I wondered if somehow there was a bias in the dithering algorithm but inspection of the PHD2 log showed that was not the case and it was properly dithering around the guide star.
Another vote for this. When I am using a guide scope at long FL, I will sometimes get some flexure that isn’t enough to ruin subs, but over the hours will cause the image to drift across the frame. I have worked around this by setting up duplicate targets set to center when they start, but a user-settable recenter option would be much easier.
Tim
Another vote for this. I hope the developers reconsider. We all don’t have perfect OAG systems.
Recently automating things and SGP is working great just a slight drift causing some issues now I am going to increase the dithering range from small to medium and see if that helps but this would probably be a very good feature.
Not sure where you got the idea that we were opposed to this… To the best of my knowledge this is the first time we have even responded to the idea.
Thanks Ken for considering! Great to hear to hear some interest. 
Hi. Just wondering if there is an update on this topic? I don’t guide as I use a C11 with Hyperstar for short exposures at a short FL. I do get small drift over a few hours and this would be a great feature to continue with the automation process.
No update. When we decide to out it into a release this ticket will get moved into that sub forum. Until then it is in the “Todo/unplanned” state.
Thanks,
Jared
The technique above to have several targets created would work just fine until it’s added. Just create enough exposures to cover an hour and duplicate your target to cover the night. Make sure you have ‘center target’ on.
Sure it works, but is not very flexible. I hope we can have this feature at some point. It would be incredibly helpful. Recentre at a time interval or at a number of frame interval would be super helpful
I’m just wondering if there is any update on this? It would be very handy to help with minor drift and, tied in with autofocus, to be able to re-centre and re-focus every X frames etc., would enhance a very valuable pair of tools.
I’ve been having this issue as well - with lots of dithering an object can end up way off on the edge of the frame by the end of the session. I’d love to have this feature.
Just wondering if there might be an update on this feature?
Thanks,
Gord
I would like to bring this up again as another feature request for consideration. If possible, could an autocentre every x number of frames be introduced in a future release? Even if this could be set as a pre or post event it would be extremely helpful for those of us who don’t guide. I don’t get a lot of drift but with many short exposures (Hyperstar) over a long period of time drift is noticeable. A work around is to create duplicates of the same target rather than events within the target but it is not a very elegant solution and it is fairly time consuming when shooting multiple targets in an evening.
Many thanks,
Gord
Agree. I was actually going to post this as a new request until I saw it had already been requested. IMO, treat it just like autofocus: allow an option to request a re-center every X minutes or every Y frames. No need for temperature-based centering, though. Or it could be an option at the beginning of each event in a sequence.
+1 for this feature
+1 for this feature.
With 1960mm FL, using a guide guide I would get drift. Same workaround as others…multiple “targets” of the same target to force a recenter every so often. Once I finally got my OAG working, no more drift.
Not a feature I would need right now, but we never know what the future brings. Would be a nice to have “just in case”.
This would indeed be a very useful feature. I have been analyzing image drift over multi hour sessions on the same target. So far unable to pin this down to polar alignment errors (would expect those to result in field rotation instead of linear drift in RA) or non-random dithering. Will continue to search for a root cause, but would very much welcome SGP being able to auto re-center on a time based interval or other triggers like the ones for auto focus.