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Old 26-07-2013, 05:28 PM
Star Hunter
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re WTD PHD settings for g/scope

At the moment I use an Orion SSAG (until I get a Lodestar) and with its 1.14.1 version PHD software, setting the calibration in PHD, is a royal PITA.

I mean how many times does one have to go through a 60 second calibration period, only to see a message coming up... 'Not enough RA movement in star to calibrate on' or words to that affect. Does the star have to 'dancing' in the FOV for the calibration to work or what? On that night we had 10/10 seeing so we can't blame bad seeing.

The g/scope I use is a Konus 5" F8 which sits on a C14 fastar which is bolted to a new Titan 50 mount.

So to this, does anyone have any settings I could try to get this Orion SSAG to work with PHD and a 1000mm or longer g/scope under average seeing skies of 8/10ths?

Thanks and appreciate any help.

Jabar
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Old 26-07-2013, 06:23 PM
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mithrandir (Andrew)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Star Hunter View Post
The g/scope I use is a Konus 5" F8 which sits on a C14 fastar which is bolted to a new Titan 50 mount.

So to this, does anyone have any settings I could try to get this Orion SSAG to work with PHD and a 1000mm or longer g/scope under average seeing skies of 8/10ths?
Jabar, you'll have to adjust the settings in the "Brain".

You want to adjust the maximum calibration step until it can complete each direction in around 15 steps. I'd guesstimate a value of around 1000 to get you started. Make it smaller if it takes less than say 12 steps and larger if more than 18. Different combinations of camera and scope require a different maximum but once you work it out is should stay the same.

PHD wants the calibration star to move about 10% of the way across the guider image, so for an SSAG that's roughly 130 pixels. That's about 145 arcsec at your image scale.

Don't forget that it will take 15 times the exposure + download + calculation time, so with a 1 sec exposure calibration will take at least 4*15 sec.
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Old 29-07-2013, 07:44 AM
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White Rabbit
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Are you using a gemini II? If so that is likely the culprit. There is a known glitch when calibrating. It always occurs on north calibration, it's like the backlash never clears after an east/west calibration, and its intermittent. All you have to do is nudge the scope north a few pixels to kick start the north south calibration. Press the top direction button and phd engages again and completes the process.

Cheers
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Old 29-07-2013, 08:18 PM
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lazjen (Chris)
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Thanks for that info - that explains what happened to me a couple of times in recent attempts. I thought I had messed up somehow. At least now that I know this problems exists I can be more aware of dealing with it.
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Old 29-07-2013, 08:35 PM
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Andy01 (Andy)
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And in addition to the already good advice given, be sure your 'scope is balanced properly. It can make a heap of difference!
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