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Alex;
I too have an EQ6 and have pretty much the same degree of frustration with autoguiding
IMHO its not PHD thats a problem its the EQ6..PHD works just fine with my CG5
secondly, when it doesnt calibrate in N/S or E/W, the only thing to do is force a recalibration, because it sure as heck isnt going to autoguide. The best thing to try is a longer calibration step-eg go up to 1000 (750 is default in the latest version of PHD, used to be 500 millisecs) or even as high as 1750 some people tell me
(you go longer when you are near the pole,shorter calibration steps when you are pointed far away from the pole)
A guy in cloudy nights suggested that I send the hand guider rate at 1.
Before you say anything- I know-it should not matter!-but I found it does.The oscillations in RA which is where I have trouble were greatly reduced simply by setting the hand guider tracking rate to 1. Makes absolutely no sense.But empirically , it worked with at least two observers--myself and the guy in cloudy nights who suggested it to me
next-watch the calibration routine..if after PHD does its things it has failed to move the guide star in a particular direction-forget it, its not going to guide
this usually means your mount is stuck in some weird backlash, and sometimes I found that that getting out of PHD and just manually moving the mount (I mean with the hand controller)may help
sometimes it means a need to rebalance the mount so it the motors are pulling against the weight
with my old CG5, it needed the last movement to be right and up in the hand controller-go figure-but if you didnt it simply would not autoguide!
I have tried the same with the EQ6 but am not convinced this works witrh the EQ6
I have managed to get the mount to guide several times-for up to two or three hours or longer, and for 10 minute subs at 950 mm focal length--but every time i set up I am not sure its going to work so I am not ready to declare victory
would be interested in your experiences as well
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