New to astrophotography Need Guiding and PHD2 help

[MarkInSpace]

I had a horrible night on the telescope
Previous Astro efforts have been marginal, since my mount was unguided.
My ASI290MC arrived, so I thought that would fix my problems - was i ever wrong.
First of all - just using the camera as an ST4 guider. - it doesn’t see to do anything - I plugged the st4 cable into the mount and the camera, and plugged the USB port into a power outlet - is that correct?

Since that didnt work i tried PHD2. I keep getting “cannot make necessary corrections in RA” messages and the pixel error was huge!!
I spent 6 hours trying to get it all working and ended up with only 3 one minute guides that were marginally acceptable. The rest had curves and circles for stars.

The best practices documentation said i need to enter the FL of the guide scope, but i could not find out where?

I also got “need to recalibrate” messages but how to do that?

ArgggHHHHH!!!

Please help!

[MarkInSpace]

I discover the focal length is entered in the new profile wizard - i had already set that up, so that is not my problem - other ideas?

[jahnpahwa]

Heya Mark!

Not sure if its of comfort or not, but you're among many who have been exactly where you are! Great news is that you're going to nail it soon and it will be awesome.

There is another thread about Phd2 guiding fairly recent here, search that up and see some very detailed step by step instructions.
(edit, here : https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=184597 )
Calibration is necessary, and a decent polar alignment is too. But yes, find that thread (actually there are many of them here on Phd2) and follow those instructions. There are lots of small details that can trip you up, but you'll work through them.

For what its worth, it took me a month of trying and failing with guiding, and I was close to giving up and throwing everything off the a nearby cliff... and that just made my first guided session all the sweeter.

Stick with it, you'll look back on this and regard it as a tiny bump on your expressway to awesome pics :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Craig_]

Assuming you've entered the correct information for your equipment (guide scope focal length, pixel size of guide camera etc), and assuming you have obtained good polar alignment, shift-clicking the start guiding button will force a calibration routine to run.

If it is saying "cannot make necessary corrections in RA" that sounds like a comms / mount problem. What mount are you using? ST4 cable should work, but you can also bypass it completely depending on how you are controlling your mount. I don't use the ST4 port, I just have the USB cable into my guide camera, which runs to my hub, into my laptop, and as my mount is controlled via EQMOD, the ST4 port is not required. If you use the handset for your mount, you would need ST4 I assume.

PHD2 will also guide you through recommended settings in EQMOD for your mount, which you should heed.