PHD2 need help understanding results

[Striker (Tony)]

Hi guys,

I did a drift align through PHD2..went well but took me about an hour as it was my first time ever.
I took some screen shots of the performance from 7pm tonight in Brisbane guiding with ASI 120mm through the Orion 50mm finderscope (autoguider)

My stars look pretty good but I have no idea if these figures are Good, Bad or terrible. I don't expect high performance from Skywatcher AZ-EQ6.
Imaging through Esprit 120 840mm

I tend to look at the RA OSC it does go up to over .30 sometimes.

What should I be looking for.?

[Atmos (Colin)]

What you're getting looks pretty good, you should be happy with those.
What you want to look at is the guide graph which looks reasonably smooth although it is kinda difficult to tell from the scale you have it at (looks almost completely flat).

The other thing to look at is the RMS values on the left hand side. Your getting around 0.5-0.6" in RA which is around what I'd get on average (and what I imagine would be average for an EQ6).

In short, what you're getting is pretty good and is what you'll get on average when it's working well and seeing is also playing nice. There are times i'd managed to get an RMS closer to 0.4" but that only happened when there were brief moments of better than normal seeing.

[Striker (Tony)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

What you're getting looks pretty good, you should be happy with those.
What you want to look at is the guide graph which looks reasonably smooth although it is kinda difficult to tell from the scale you have it at (looks almost completely flat).

The other thing to look at is the RMS values on the left hand side. Your getting around 0.5-0.6" in RA which is around what I'd get on average (and what I imagine would be average for an EQ6).

In short, what you're getting is pretty good and is what you'll get on average when it's working well and seeing is also playing nice. There are times i'd managed to get an RMS closer to 0.4" but that only happened when there were brief moments of better than normal seeing.

Ok thanks Colin...

[kens (Ken)]

You should always attach the guide log rather than screen shots for an in depth analysis. But at face value, I agree with Colin that it is pretty reasonable for an EQ6

[jenchris (Jennifer)]

Your target star is a bit bigger than I would use.
Otherwise pretty nice looking.

[Striker (Tony)]

Originally Posted by kens

You should always attach the guide log rather than screen shots for an in depth analysis. But at face value, I agree with Colin that it is pretty reasonable for an EQ6

Ok cheers Ken, will check that out, I am real new to PHD2..didnt know anything about logs..just getting back into this hobby after 12 year break...lots of things have changed....lol

[kens (Ken)]

PHD2 normally saves its log files under Documents\PHD2
The folder is configured in the "brain"
You can view the log files with PHDLogViewer and PEMPROlogviewer
The log files contain a wealth of information about your setup and the full set of data from each session. Your screenshot only shows 150 seconds of data.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

The attached summary of notes on PHD may assist you.

[Striker (Tony)]

Originally Posted by Merlin66

The attached summary of notes on PHD may assist you.

Cheers Ken, that's a good read, have saved it to read in far more detail.

Thanks again.