Very helpful info! I have a permanent pier but have been re calibrating PHD every time I go out. I will get a good calibration and just reuse that. Will certainly save some time. Was hoping to test things out last night, got to the point of starting PHD and the clouds rolled in (seems a common theme here lately). Hopefully I will actually get to test the imaging sequence soon.
Well I disabled PHD2 as suggested. SGP slewed to target when I told it to, it plate solved M57 and centered. I started PHD2, autofocused, then ran the sequence. At first the same result, just counted elapsed time. I paused it, restarted the sequence and did not let it recenter. It started an image and started counting down and elapsed time ran. I thought I was in the clear, however this was supposed to be the first of 6 images. The progress bar showed 12% after the first image but it never started back up. I paused, resumed,and it still would not image. I paused and restarted and still nothing.
Finally got the sequencer to image last night. I think the problems do stem
from PHD2. I thought I had it fully disabled it, but got a message about
dither when I ran the sequence. Once I told it to continue and ignore
dither, it started imaging. Apparently I still donât have a full handle on
getting some settings saved, either in control panel, equipment profile or
the sequence. Just not sure. It would sure be nice to get PHD2 to cooperate
with SGP as I can run it manually but with no dither. I did save my last
good PhD calibration so if you any ideas on getting it to run with sgp, I
would like to hear it. I did get pretty good auto focus v curve just with
random numbers I plugged in.
I will not get a chance to troubleshoot any tonight as my first grandchild
is set to be delivered tonight! Will get those logs to you after things
settle hear.
Iâm happy to report I have had some success the past two nights in getting things to cooperate within SGP. I have been able to run sequences, that slew, solve, autofocus, start PHD2, guide, slew to next target and repeat. Itâs a real treat to watch it work.
I still need to refine my autofocus settings as well as some phd2 settings. It is dithering but I am unsure on what settings to use here for best results.
I have noticed that most of my star images are slightly oblong, and many times, itâs almost like the scope is bumped, leaving a slight blip on one side of the star.
Any ideas where to start on that? My polar alignment is good. Maybe something in the guiding or shutter release?
I would check balance. Ideally you want the east side of the mount to be heavier. This may involve moving counterweights slightly or coming up with some sort of weight mechanism to keep the gears meshed. âPerfectâ balance can often cause issues, as can west heavy.
Really like how the sequencing works but the autofocus is killing me. Usually spend most of my time now just trying to get a decent curve and waiting on the routine to finish. Wouldnât be so bad but I rarely get a good curve and have never gotten an HFR below 4.8. Itâs so frustrating night after night never making progress with autofocus. No rhyme or reason with the settings, they only go from bad to worse.
Sorry, by âAF logâ I was just meaning the normal SGP log with AF and the AF Packs turned on so we can correlate. Also youâll want to turn off the AF packs when not troubleshooting as they store each AF image to the file system.
It's your choice in telescope not the software. It's hard to focus an SCT automatically.
You have to determine the amount of backlash in your system in order to make it work. I think weâve talked through this, but if you have any questions, please let me know.
Ok I will ignore the manual.
Just curious, what is a typical time for the autofocus process?
I am continuing to try and improve autofocus but still cant seem to get it below 4.8 HFR.
Itâs interesting that in this post some one person is using a step size of 2 and another 125. I donât follow that but 125 has seemed to get me as close to something semi usable 4.8 HFW. how anyone gets lower, I donât know.
Canât really say. It is a function of exposure time, download time and data points. Fairly easy to calculate if you have all that data. What I can say is that a typical exposure time for AF is 5-10 seconds. We donât recommend running AF with a narrowband filter⌠thatâs just trouble waiting to happen.
Minimum HFR is a relative measure based on your equipment and the environment. Itâs not impossible (or important) that 4.8 is the minimum, only that you have a âVâ or a âUâ shaped graph.
Different focus motors do different things. Some motors have a very fine step size and will need higher step sizes. Some motors have very coarse step sizes and need lower step sizes. In terms of physical distance moved, 125 and 2 steps could be identical.