First time guiding = FAIL

[thegableguy]

First time trying guiding and it's not going well.

I've got a QHY5L-ii focused nicely in my ED80, which I'm using as a guidescope. I'm drift aligned and good to go.

I've opened PHD2 and have entered all the settings correctly. The camera is connected to the laptop via USB, and PHD2 can connect and show an image; the camera's ST4 is connected directly to my mount (NEQ6). I've found a bright star and it's more or less in the centre of the image.

Beyond that, I don't know what I'm doing.

Any star I click on as a guide star slowly drifts out of view (takes about 2 mins to cross the FOV so drift align not 100% perfect, but surely more than good enough). The graph shows absolutely no activity of any kind.

What am I missing? Any ideas? I've fumed at it and tried hitting every button I can for the past 15 mins with absolutely no effect whatsoever. Sometimes buttons work (loop, start guiding etc) but more often they do absolutely nothing.

Any suggestions? I kinda expected this to be a painful experience, but was hoping to be proven wrong and have it all magically work without too much effort. Sigh. Nope.

[thegableguy]

Do I need to install ASCOM drivers on the laptop to make it work??

[barx1963]

In PHD, have you clicked on the picture of the camera in bottom left? That allows you to connect the camera and the mount. If using ST4 you will need to select "on camera" as your mount.
Other issue that is occurring to me is if the mount is tracking? IF it is not, then the star will drift. If using EQMOD, select sidereal as your tracking mode. If using the handset, assuming you are aligned, use the handset to point at a target and it will start tracking all by itself.

MAlcolm

[glend]

Try Metaguide, i have used it without problems for years, can't stand PHD2.

[thegableguy]

All good! Well, I think so - just as I figured it out the clouds rolled in.

I installed the ASCOM driver (and older .NET framework / C++ etc) which opened up the list under "Aux Mount", which had no options previously.

Yep I had an image on screen but guiding just didn't seem to be doing anything. The camera didn't seem able to connect to the mount. Hopefully it was the ASCOM driver. I had the impression that the mount would be able to recognise the camera's instructions already, but perhaps not. Nowhere in PHD2's instructions, or those of the NEQ6, did it suggest the laptop needed ASCOM installed. Aaaaanyway. You live you learn.

[tonez]

if you are using the guide cable straight from the camera to mount you need to have the mount setting to 'on-camera'

ascom driver is is for using the cable from the hand controller to the pc or straight from the mount to pc replacing the hand controller with eqmod

[thegableguy]

See, that's what I thought. I did indeed use the ST4 cable from the camera to the mount, but it definitely wasn't working. The camera showed an image but there seemed to be no info going to the mount.

Hmmm.

Is there some option on the mount itself that needs to be activated? I assumed it would just work but maybe there's something I need to do via the hand controller first..?

It could possibly be my laptop, which is pretty dreadful (hence it being sacrificed to deal with whatever weather astrophotography throws at it). Especially since the stupid stupid hated stupid awful wretched annoying compulsory Windows 10 "upgrade".

[barx1963]

Again, are you using "On Camera" as your mount option on the connection screen? Your camera will send an image to your PC via the USB cable. PHD will decide what corrections need to be made and if you have selected "On Camera" it will send those corrections back to the camera that will then send them to the mount via the ST4 cable. If you have not selected "On Camera" it will not know what to do.
ASCOM drivers are not needed for ST4 guiding.

You mentioned the Aux mount setting in PHD. That is used to enable PHD to handle meridian flips so you do not have to recalibrate when you change to the other side of the mount

Malcolm

[billdan]

Hi Chris,

For your setup you do not need ASCOM installed, if you are using the ST4 cable. Secondly you do need to change anything on the EQ6.
All you have to do is tell PHD what the focal length of the ST80 is, the pixel size of the QHY5 and the calibration step size. Also make sure the mount parameter is set to on board camera.

When you select a star and then click the guide button, the first thing PHD will do is a calibration, it will attempt to go West for 12 steps and then return Easterly for another 12 steps, followed by North and South.

If it fails calibration it will not guide until you fix something. This could be a faulty ST4 cable or incorrect calibration step size ( start with a 1000mS and see if that is enough movement). To restart calibration press the shift key on the keyboard as you click the guide button.

All the other parameters you can fine tune later when it is guiding, such as aggressiveness, hysteresis, min movement etc.

Cheers
Bill

EDIT: make sure you do select a star and not a hot pixel, it will not guide on hot pixels.

[thegableguy]

Yes, it was set to On Camera. I started and re-started PHD2 a bunch of times, unplugged and plugged the camera back in several times, tried two different ST4 cables (including the one it came with). It quite definitely wasn't working.

[thegableguy]

I entered all the details including focal length & pixel size.

I tried several stars, some very bright and others less bright. No difference.

In the Connect dialog box it says it was connected to both camera and mount, but the settings boxes for both were disabled...? Not sure why.

Anyway I packed it all away hours ago, nothing I can do until the next non-cloudy night I happen to be home for.

Thanks everyone for your help but unfortunately it seems I'm no closer to figuring this nonsense out.

[peter_4059]

Chris,

Once it is showing connected for both the camera and mount,
1. I assume you are clicking the looping button (second from left at bottom) to get an image from the camera and you see stars in the main window?
2. PHD2 automatically selects a good guide star if you click Alt-S. A small green box will appear around the star.
3. You then click the guide button (third from left at bottom). PHD2 will draw yellow dashed cross hairs over your selected star and start the calibration routine moving the scope east, west, north and south.
4. When the calibration step is complete the yellow dashed lines turn green and guiding commences - you will see corrections/errors appear in the guide graph.

Are you seeing each of these steps? If not where does it fail?

There is also the manual guide option to test whether PHD2 can actually move the mount.

The only setting in the EQ6 sysnscan to check is the ST4 autoguide rate - on my hand controller this is located under the "SETUP\Autoguide Speed" menu (I'm assuming you are using the hand controller and not EQMOD?). Try setting this at 0.75x and press the enter key.

[spiezzy]

Yes I think the Calibration step is the important one being missed here by the sounds of it if it wont calibrate it wont guide follow Petes steps and see how you go and maybe take some screen shots of what it is doing
cheers Pete

[billdan]

From Chris's feedback it seems that PHD is not calibrating at all. Maybe try a different version of PHD.

[thegableguy]

Thanks Peter, if the weather allows tonight I'll go through each of these steps in order and try to isolate where it's breaking down.

The guy who owned the mount before me used PHD2 with it so I assume the autoguide rate is already set - I haven't touched it since buying it - but it's worth checking.

I kinda expect the laptop itself is the problem unfortunately - it's been a disaster since installing Windows 10.

[thegableguy]

Success!

I'm currently guiding my first proper long exposures on NGC7293, seems to be working. The laptop might have just been having a bad night; it actually overheated and shut down automatically a few days ago, which convinced Windows to automatically uninstall some horrible update or other, and now it's running much better.

Stoopid Windows 10.

It also seems to help a lot using the Alt+S thing to let it choose its own star. It never seemed to like any of my choices but it's working quite nicely now.

Next thing is to look at what all the other settings do and what data it's showing - it may as well be in ancient Hebrew for all I understand of it. Absolutely no idea what any of it means.

Thanks everyone for your help, really appreciate it. I'll meet you all back here shortly with whatever dumb question next stops me in my tracks...!

[kens]

Don't fiddle randomly with the settings. Leave the default settings and run the Guide Assistant for advice on what to tweak

[barx1963]

The single most effective thing I have done with my imaging is a while back I went and purchased a brand new laptop with W7. Uninstalled all useless software, disabled all update services, made sure all power options were set to always on and no power saving modes or screen savers or similar were active. Only installed software from file that I loaded onto an external drive that I had scanned with antivirus and malware screening (used two different PCs products) and switched off the wireless adapters so it is completely isolated from the world.
That is now my imaging laptop. It just sits there and runs my software and doesn't interrupt or do any annoying things. I don't even have processing software installed. Use the said external drive to transfer to a processing PC.

So far this has worked very well, no more coming back to my rig to find it stopped imaging 30 minutes ago, it just chugs away now.

Happy days!!

Malcolm