help with EQ5 pro guiding set up

[daine042 (Daine)]

Good afternoon everyone, I am having some issues with getting guiding sorted on my EQ5 pro GO-TO mount. I am assuming I have everything plugged in correctly, but when I start a calibration in PHD the DEC axis does not want to work. What could be some possible causes and fixes?Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

How are you connected to the mount Daine ? What hardware, cables, software etc. There can be multiple causes for not working from hardware to software and correct setup in menus etc.

[Robert9 (Robert)]

In what way doesn't it work Daine? I note you are using PHD guiding - with what guide-scope/camera combo? Are these set up correctly in PHD? Does Is PHD connected? Have you polar aligned your mount?
Sorry if this sounds like a first degree, and maybe the questions are a bit basic, but we need the detail.
Robert

[daine042 (Daine)]

Hi thanks for the replys i am using a un branded camera which is basically a zwo asi 120 mm in an off axis guider. I am getting star images on screen. When doing the calibration i get an error message with something like star moved less than so many pixels in ra but i do get movement in dec. I haven't changed any settings in both phd or the hand piece.

[glend (Glen)]

Well there's your problem. The ASI ZWO camera is a high frame rate video camera which PHD just can't keep up with. I had exactly the same probem and tore my hair out trying to get it to work, a few have but for me it was much easier to simply use Metaguide - which is designed for high rate video, doesn't lock up, and supports the ASI cameras in native model. Metaguide is free, try it, it should work right away. Just enter your ASI details in the Setup page. Good luck.

Before the rants start from PHD devotees, i should add that there are ways to get PHD2 to work with the ASI cameras Now but it requires fiddling around with a number of factors in setup. At the time I began PHD2 did not work at all with ASIs. Never the less, Metaguide is still so essy by comparison that imho all beginners shoud start with Metaguide.

[daine042 (Daine)]

Thanks Glen, I will give that a go tonight. I am very new to this whole guiding thing, over the past few years I have been using someone else's set up for astrophotography, but I finally have my own set up and observatory and its harder than what I had imagined to get running