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Old 19-11-2018, 05:20 PM
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Lee
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Lodestar weird bug

The other night I couldn't get a guiding image out of PHD2 with my Lodestar, just a bright image with some garbly digital looking signal in one corner.... I thought the CCD was toast, but pushed on with some unguided comet images.

Checking more closely today, I've changed out the cable and tried a different (known working) port on the USB hub, where it was working fine not long ago.

I also plugged the Lodestar into my inside mac laptop, installed the Starlight Live app, and the little CCD appears to be working. It certainly displays light and dark in response to a hand covering the CCD, and I even made up a pinhole, and could see a blurry image of my living room door and the house over the street.

So it appears the Lodestar is functioning, but not where I need it to.

In the obs I'm going to start with a re-install of the SX drivers and even PHD2? Any other ideas before it gets dark?
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Old 19-11-2018, 05:26 PM
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multiweb (Marc)
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Just a thought, sometime mine goes very bright if there are no stars within the FOV. Then it goes darker again when a star comes in as if the brightness adjusts automatically. It's more obvious if you use a dark frame as well when looping the subs in PHD. I have two lodestars. They both behave the same.
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Old 19-11-2018, 05:32 PM
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Thanks, I do use darks, and generally get a pretty nice image on PHD....
Depending on my after-kids-get-to-bed energy tonight I'll try firing it up and see, I've never noted the lodestar to not find something (200mm f/4 newt) to guide with.
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Old 19-11-2018, 05:38 PM
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multiweb (Marc)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee View Post
Thanks, I do use darks, and generally get a pretty nice image on PHD....
Depending on my after-kids-get-to-bed energy tonight I'll try firing it up and see, I've never noted the lodestar to not find something (200mm f/4 newt) to guide with.
Yeah I only get the problem when guiding ~3m, sometime the guide stars are scarce and you end up fishing around for one, that's when I noticed the image flashes bright then dark.
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Old 20-11-2018, 05:40 AM
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Colour is over-rated

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OK.... some dark testing....
I reinstalled the newest drivers from SX, and no change in PHD2, just a white image.
Connected the Lodestar into the Mac, and Starlight Live was getting images through the OAG.
So now I have to suspect PHD2....
There were some patchy clouds moving past last night, so I didn't push on, I'll look at a reinstall tonight.
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Old 25-11-2018, 06:31 AM
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Colour is over-rated

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Success. Sort of.
I fired everything up last night, in the hope that the gremlin took off through the week, but he was still there. Tried to install 'Starlight Live' to test a different capture program, but of course windows wouldn't have it, some missing .dll file.
So I reset the PHD2 configuration, and the Lodestar was up again, giving the usual OAG images. Happy days?
There was a glitch after not too long though (and other guiding problems) which gave a partial image scan (see pic) - does anyone know or have experience with this - is this indicative of a dodgy camera, cable, USB port or capture program?
Or any of the above?
(PHD2 wasn't frozen at this point, it was complaining of low SNR, and exported the image OK.)
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Old 25-11-2018, 06:36 AM
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h0ughy (David)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee View Post
Success. Sort of.
I fired everything up last night, in the hope that the gremlin took off through the week, but he was still there. Tried to install 'Starlight Live' to test a different capture program, but of course windows wouldn't have it, some missing .dll file.
So I reset the PHD2 configuration, and the Lodestar was up again, giving the usual OAG images. Happy days?
There was a glitch after not too long though (and other guiding problems) which gave a partial image scan (see pic) - does anyone know or have experience with this - is this indicative of a dodgy camera, cable, USB port or capture program?
Or any of the above?
(PHD2 wasn't frozen at this point, it was complaining of low SNR, and exported the image OK.)
were the other images full screen? looks like the signal from the camera? cable first but i suspect the camera
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Old 25-11-2018, 06:39 AM
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Yes, full screen, normal - much like this.....
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