I know that the Auto Focus (AF) can automatically be paused during a sequence run (either by time / # of frames / temp change / etc). What I would like to see is the guiding in PHD2 to stop guiding anytime a call for an AF run is made - either manually or automatically. I often do manual AF runs and it sucks when PHD2 looses its star mass and starts flashing red. I know I can stop the guiding manually - but it would be great if it did always within SGP. I can’t think of any reason why anyone would want guiding to not pause when auto focusing?
I’m using a guide scope for guiding, why would I stop guiding during an autofocus?
There is always the risk then of drifting away from the target.
So you better stop guiding yourself, with one click
Hi,
in both the Profile Manager and the Control Panel, there’s a field you can tick to pause guiding during AF. Under the “Auto Guide” tab -> “Other Options” section.
General,
Unfortunately ticking “Pause guiding during autofocus” doesn’t address your original question. Unless the sequence is actually running, guiding still won’t pause when a manual autofocus run is called for.
I don’t think there is any way to pause autoguiding from within SGP during autofocus, unless the sequence is running. The only way to do that is to pause PHD2, switch back to SGP and run autofocus, then unpause PHD2 after autofocus completes.
SGP will take care of things during sequence. But if you’re running them
manually we assume you know what you’re doing and you’re responsible for
the state of things. Thus those options are only used during a sequence and
not when manually invoked. This is by design, not an oversight.
Would you consider having the default action of SGP to pause guiding anytime an AF run is called for? I don’t know how many times (I’m kinda thick J) that I’ve done this with the Auto Guiding still going and then having to switch over to PHD2, stop guiding, go back to SGP, etc, etc.
Don’t get me wrong – I love SGP – it’s my default capture/sequencing program. I just don’t see why SGP shouldn’t pause Auto Guiding during a manual or a sequence call for AF?
@Andre explained why in this thread a few posts ago. People who are not using off axis guiders do not want or need to turn guiding off during focus operations because the guide camera is not affected by changes in focus of the main camera. They, quite reasonably, do not want to disturb their guiding when they don’t have to.
You do realise that not everyone uses an off axis guider?
Alright, I see that logic. I was only considering OAG use here – my bad.
But I still think there could be a option in control panel under Auto Focus or Other for OAG users, that if checked, pauses Guiding during any AF run manual or sequenced? It can’t be difficult to implement?
Probably not very difficult, just lots of things ahead of it. Even if it takes an hour there are a lot of other small things that also need to be addressed.
Also I think if we were to address this it would be more holistic. Such that all options would be honored for manual running, and that starts to get a good deal more difficult.
I fully agree with you and don’t understand why the existing “pause guiding during AF.” option does not do that already.
It is very confusing (especially in the midle of the night) to have this option operating in one case (while sequence is running) and not operating in another case (sequence paused)
