I set up the evening before to ensure that everything is good to go to begin a sequence at 3:00 a.m. Going out the next morning, however, the scope is still in the same orientation left when I parked it the night before. Looking at the log, PHD is not responding. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
If you are willing to view the attached log, I parked the scope around 10:47 p.m. on April 30, setting the sequence to begin at 3:00 a.m on May 1.
Doug - I have had occasional problems with PHD but nearly every time it is because I have independently fiddled (stop, pause, start) with PHD2 directly. If I let PHD2 be entirely controlled by SGP, it is very reliable. I will then monitor the PHD2 window and occasionally change the exposure time, but that is all.
G’day Doug,
I have the same wake up problem, the only way I can get PHD to start is to go into Sharpcap, start the guide camera looping, close Sharpcap, then go into PHD and connect mount & guide cam, then start the sequence, despite my best efforts this the only way I can get PHD to run, perhaps not the ideal solution but it works for me.
cheers Russ
Thanks, Buzz. That gives me some useful information. After parking, the camera and mount did disconnect from PHD, but I did start and stop PHD afterwards to check a few things. That might explain my problem if your theory is correct.
That’s interesting, Russ. I’m wondering if the issue might be related to the order in which I’m doing things. The issue I encountered the last two nights involved first parking the telescope (thereby disconnecting PHD) and then setting the sequence to fire up several hours later. Reviewing the log shows SGP constantly attempting to keep some kind of communication going with PHD, to no avail.
Earlier in the week, however, I believe I first set the sequence in motion (again to fire up hours later), and then parking the scope (to ensure that tracking was not going on after I went to bed). This set of events was successful.
Finally, I’ve always had success when running multiple events in a night, e.g. 10:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m., followed by 3:00 a.m. until dawn. SGP successfully turned off tracking and disconnected PHD at 1:00 a.m., and then had no problem waking PHD up at 3:00 a.m. for the second event.
Looks like I have some experimenting to do for my own understanding.
I have hundreds of imaging hours under my belt and this is what I do. On a few rare occasions I had SGP fail to start up PHD2, but not recently.
If I change the system configuration I independently calibrate PHD2 at 0 DEC and then tell it to remember the calibration. I set up and store the PHD2 configuration, along with its dark file etc. I have PHD2 pause guiding during slewing.
In SGP, in my equipment profile manager, I ensure that I am selecting the right PHD2 configuration and set a suitable dither size and pause guiding during AF and download.
From PC boot up, I simply fire up SGP and run my sequence. It fires up TSX (I have a Paramount) and also fires up PHD2, connects it to the mount etc and then SGP entirely controls PHD2 from there on. The only thing I sometimes fiddle with is the exposure time, min move and hysteresis (on the fly).
If you go into PHD2 and stop/start guiding, there is a good chance it loses sync with SGP and you will have instances of SGP stopping a sequence as it cannot settle, when in fact the guider is not running. You can sometimes recover by setting PHD2 to the mode that SGP expects and it will carry on.
The ability for the two to lose sync has been raised by me and others in the past. According to Andy, this should be avoidable as the PHD2 status is available as a property.
I go through these exact same steps, also without problems. I believe the trouble recently encountered had to do with the order of parking and setting up a delayed sequence, i.e. Resuming the Sequence at 11:00 p.m. to begin imaging at 3:00 a.m. but will do some experimenting on the next clear night. There might be other things at play, so I’m going to look through the logs carefully.
I appreciate your responses. They are very helpful.