Phd2 problems

General
1

Hi
I recently dowloaded your spectacular program however I am experiencing some issues. The sgp does not want to work with phd2. Initially it would not remember the profile but I overcame that problem. Now even if I hear connect or resume it gives me a msg like resuming guiding but it does not connect. I can see that phd2 is working fine and guiding but sgp does not see it. I ended up running phd2 outside of sgp and it all worked other than I obviously lost some functionality. I was reading up and it seems that I am not the only one who has this problem. And wondering if you have a fix for that
Thank you
Ewa

Sent from my iPhone

2

There are certainly a few things that new users do that cause apparent PHD2 operational issues. Here are my top tips.

  1. Set up a PHD2 first and give your equipment configuration a profile name.
  2. Ensure that the PHD2 server is enabled (in PHD2)
  3. In SGP, under the guider tab, select PHD2 and confirm that you can select the PHD2 profile you used.
  4. In SGP decide on when you wish to pause guiding. FWIW, I pause guiding during download and focusing.
  5. Decide on what dithering you want in SGP
  6. Manually calibrate PHD2 on a star, close to the Celestial equator and tell PHD2 to remember the calibration.
  7. In PHD2 set up your guider algorithm and exposure. I use hysteresis and default settings as a starting point.

Now that it is set up, close PHD2 and create your image sequence in SGP. Hit run sequence and SGP will automatically connect to your equipment and fire up and connect to PHD2.

LET SGP COMPLETELY MANAGE PHD2. If you intervene, there is a good chance you will cause the two to get out of lockstep, it appears that SGP assumes the PHD2 status and if you independently change PHD2 status, SGP may not pick up on it and get confused.

In this manner, having done the initial PHD2 calibration for a particular imaging setup, I never touch it, other than to change the guider exposure on the fly.