Hello,
it seems that ‘pause guiding during AF’ function does not work when simply clicking on the AF ‘RUN’ button. This causes some problem to the AF result.
During a sequence the guiding stops normally.
I often control my focus manually during the sequence and thus I have also to manually pause the guiding, may be you can do something to solve this issue.
Thanks.
pascal
This is true. Our current policy is that SGPro only owns the guider during a sequence. Outside of a sequence no assumptions are made and we don’t touch the guider.
1 Like
Hello Ken,
thank you for your reply, but it seems that this point will not be modified… in this state the Run button is not very efficient when using an OAG as the AF is negatively affected by the auto guider behavior during the AF procedure., Before to begin a sequence I (but I am not probably alone) have often to do several AF using the run command in order to verify that all is ok, having to disable the auto guider is not very convenient (risk of loosing the guiding star and having to center the target again).
Does anyone else meet the same concern?
Thanks.
Pascal
Have a ‘run’ button with some settings not applied is not very logic, but apparently I am alone to use an oag and to think that is, at the least, not very convenient…
Pascal:
I have the same issue and it can be a bit frustrating. When running AF manually (clicking the RUN button), PHD2 is not paused and continues guiding, ruining the AF run as it tries to correct the out of focus star. When AF is called automatically during a sequence, it pauses PHD2 which places it in a state in which it keeps acquiring images and keeping track of the guide star but doesn’t issue correction. When unpaused, PHD2 will restore the star to the original position. For those of us using an OAG and also experience some image shift during focus, this is invaluable for restoring the frame to the correct centered position.
Unfortunately, best I can tell, PHD2 does not expose this “Pause” option in the UI, so it is not possible to pause guiding outside of the SSI. You can stop or suspend guiding, but as you pointed out, when PHD2 resumes guiding from either of these states, it starts with the star in its new, shifted position, resulting in a new image center.
SGP does offer a way to pause guiding in the CP under the Auto Guide tab, but for me at least, the “Pause” button does not work. I put in a request to add a functional “Pause” button to the to the PHD2 docking module so that we wouldn’t have to dig into the menus to pause guiding, but it didn’t gain any traction.
Tim
Hi Tim,
thank you for your reply, I feel less alone now.
Effectively, there is a “pause” button in the guider tab, but it does not work for me too, as the button resume, I can only stop the guiding … not very useful
To avoid the star shift if you manually stop PHD guiding, you can select the ‘sticky lock position’ option in the tool tab of PHD, this allows the guiding star position to be recorded.
It is a pity that this request, that appeared very reasonable, is just ignored, may be if some other people join us to support this request …
Pascal
I didn’t know that. Thanks.
Tim
I hope it will help you.
Now we have ‘beautiful’ new ‘pro’ icons but not real hope to have help on our problem, I am afraid.
I will try to use the ‘settle auto guider before auto-focus frame’ may be is a possible solution, with a longer AF time.
I found another issue in the equipment profile manager where two incompatible options can be selected together : ‘settle auto guider before auto-focus frame’ and ‘pause guiding during auto-focus frame’, this is not possible through the control panel directly. I have not tested the resulting effects if the two options are activated in the same time.