Stop Guiding During Downloads

Sequence Generator Request Archive
1

I use SGPro with my QHY22 and QHY5LII for a guider with PHD2 and everything works great…I can even trust the mount flips with my large refractor and get a good nights sleep. However, when I use my Canon T3 as an imaging camera, I get occasional lockups of PHD2/QHY5LII where I have to reboot in order to continue. This is not the fault of SGPro, PHD2 or any other software that I’ve used to image, but seems to be something about the drivers of the T3 and QHY5LII not really liking each other for lack of a better term.

I select the options to pause the guider during downloads, focus etc when use the T3, however even though the guider is paused, it still reads frames from the QHY5LII and hence there is mischief for lockups. So for a request, can an option be added to stop the guider instead of just pausing it? It would take a little more time to get going again and dithering may be a problem, but at least the lockups may go away.

Thanks,

Frank Z…

2

This is more of a PHD request than SGP. We just issue Pause. It’s up to the guider to determine what that means. Previous versions of PHD actually stopped taking frames. New versions now continue to track the star but don’t send guide output.

I can see benefits in both solutions. But at the end of the day I think this is a PHD option as to what “Pause” should actually do.

Thanks,
Jared

3

Jared,

Thanks for the reply.

I did bring this up on the Stark Labs Yahoo group (in response to a guide lockup problem), but nothing yet. I brought it up here because I don’t know if you could just send a “pause” command to PHD or if you can also send a “stop” as an option, and in that case if you could then start it up again. If that is the case, then there could be a work around in SGPro.

Since most of my imaging is with my CCD and that is working flawlessly in SGPro, this isn’t a big issue with me, that’s why I listed under requests over a problem.

Thanks,
Frank Z…

4

Frank, you should go over to the PHD2 Yahoo Group. They’re significantly more responsive. I dunno if Dr Stark is even writing PHD anymore.

5

We previously sent a “Stop” command but changed to a “Pause” in more recent versions of SGP as this was recommended from the PHD2 developers.

Thanks,
Jared

6

As this seems more like a driver issue, I may spend some time during a full moon to try combinations of USB ports and cables to see if I can find one that works. What I was looking for as an SGPro request was maybe an option on the guider page to “Use Stop instead of Pause”

Thanks,
Frank Z…

7

Frank,
I may have misspoke. First, what version of SGP are you using? Current behavior is that it should be stopping.

Also stopping (rather than pausing) is the behavior going forward.

Thanks,
Jared

8

I keep it updated to the latest, but I can’t verify that right now…when I get home. I know that I have “Paused during Autofocus” checked with my QHY22 (not needed due to any problems, just no need to guide on out of focus stars) and I see the frames updated on the PDH2 display, so it is still reading the QHY5LII frames during autofocus runs.

Thanks,
Frank Z…

9

Frank,

Somebody just asked that question the other day in the open-phd-guiding (phd2) google group. Here’s the link to the discussion thread.

Andy

10

Andy,

Thanks for the link (not a member of any google group yet). It looks like I’m not the only one with this problem (he uses the same guider, but doesn’t state the imaging camera). Looks like another reason to look forward to the release of 2.4!

Frank Z…

11

Jared,

FYI, I am running 2568 and PHD2 is reading frames during an autoguider pause. So I guess I’ve be looking forward to 2.4

Thanks,

Frank Z…

12

You can go back to phd1 if you really want this feature in the mean time.

Thanks
Jared

13

Jared,

I have enough things in the imaging queue to keep me busy before I break out the T3. I’ll wait for 2.4 to test it out.

Thanks,

Frank Z…

14

Yep, it was me. I have a very similar problem to Frank’s and was hoping
to reduce USB traffic during periods when one or the other camera is
actually downloading. I am happy with Andy’s response in the linked
message and will wait for v2.4.

  • Shane
15

Closed as duplicate.