Q for PHD users-especially Eq6 PHD guiding users

[seeker372011]

Hi all;

just continuing to have problems with my EQ6-now just wont guide in RA, even though it calibrates supposedly ok

I noticed last night that in the calibration steps the guide star moves in W, N and S but virtually doesnt move in E

I have been using PHD guiding for 18 months maybe (with my CG5) and sorry to say that I never noticed if this is normal behaviour- I'd say not but i jus wonder if anyone has been more observant than me

I believe PHD first calibrates in RA(which is the W/E calibration) then in Dec(the N/S calibration) ..so if it is failing to move the star in one direction in RA it could explain my issues-unless this is pretty normal for an Eq6 in which case I am barking up the wrong tree

gosh I am having so much trouble with this EQ6 I wish I had bought something else instead. My old CG5 cant handle large loads-which is why I "upgraded" :( :shrug::rolleyes: but in terms of reliability and software was just streets ahead in usability :(

[h0ughy]

i never really had that problem. if you really want to test and see if it can guide on a guide star the n deliberatelly put it a smidgen out of alignmnt so both axis have to work and then let it rip. mine works well, though i have not upgraded the firmware from 3.12, i was going to and purchase the eqmod thingy to use it with the PC later

[[1ponders]]

AlexN had a similar problem by the sounds of it. It would calibrate in one direction but just wouldn't do the deed perpendicular to the first direction. It was a cable/connection issue.

[gbeal]

And without wanting to generically simplify problems like this normally they are cable/connection, or in my case operator issues.
Can you try another cable?
Gary

[AlexN]

Yep... give the ST4 plug a wiggle at the mount, and at the GPUSB

[seeker372011]

It may well be a cable problem..and I will write to Shoestring astronomy, I hear he is very helpful

The two graphs extracted from the log show what is happening--unguided there was a drift -in both Dec and RA of about 15 to 16 pixels over 160 seconds or so; with guiding turned on DEC is guiding almost sub pixel but RA is oscillating out of control

so would this be a cable problem or a software problem?

The other thing I noticed is that in the calibration steps in RA east the star is hardly moving-more often than not the star continues to move in the same direction as when the RA West calibration is taking place-it should be reversing direction but it doesnt seem to- or if it does it moves only a couple of pixels not the 25 odd in the West calibration step
does this sound like a
problem with PHD guiding? with GPUSB and cable? with my mount?

appreciate your comments and will certainly check the cable

[seeker372011]

oh and in the graphs the x axis is instances-4 seconds in between each instance and y axis is of course pixels

[AlexN]

Not to be a broken record, but that problem you just described is EXACTLY the problem I had... Mine would calibrate E/W no worries, but then it would attempt to calibrate N, usually resulting in the star moving WSW, then it would go on to calibrate south, and make massive adjustments...

Wiggled the cables a bit, bang, calibrated and guided, was running 10min subs no worries.

[seeker372011]

Alex, next clear night I will give it a go

fingers crossed its as simple a solution as you are suggesting it could be

I will breath a big sigh of relief if it is

I dont need this aggravation on top of everything else that goes wrong in this astroimaging caper :(
Narayan

[AlexN]

Tell me about it mate.... It had me beat for over 2 weeks... when it turned out to be so simple I had to laugh for a minute.... Then walked around all night with the biggest of grins on my face telling everyone about my 8 ~ 10 min subs :D

[Tandum]

I have similar intermittant trouble with my eq6 and it isn't plugs. Tracking appears to stop on mine and phd won't calibrate in one direction. I have to go to setup/tracking/surreal/enter on the handset to get it going again. Listening to the mount is the easy way to tell if it has stopped. That woosh woosh noise it makes when tracking is missing. Next time it happens I was going to swap to my handset from the heq5 to see if it fixes it.

[seeker372011]

I have checked and and made sure tracking is on sidereal so in my case at least thats is not the issue,

[seeker372011]

Here's tonight's update

When I got my GPUSB unit originally, I did check the LED operation with GPUSB Check but never checked the motors-bad move as it turns out


sure enough when I did try GPUSB Check tonight I found that while a guide star moves when I use Dec-, Dec+, RA- it does not move in RA +

The star moves when I use the Hand controller so its not the mount or HC

(I lined up a star image on the cross hairs using Nebulosity with an Orion Deep Space imager on my scope , and tried the four directions in GPUSB to see what worked)

This has got to be the source of my runaway RA guiding issue

I have written to Doug Anderson and await a response

[DeanoNZL]

Until you get it sorted, you can use Ascom to connect to the quider & mount, bypassing the ST4 connector.;)

[seeker372011]

what cables do you need to do this?-does the cable plug into the handcontroller?

[DeanoNZL]

I assume you use PHD?
Make sure you connect serial cable to hand controller as usual.
Do not choose PCDIRECT.

In PHD, under "Mount", choose Ascom.
Box will ask for mount details. Either EQ6(EQMOD) or Nexstar 8i will do.Enable Pulse Guiding if available...
Software will verify if it can see the mount.
All else is the same.:thumbsup:

[seeker372011]

aah thats the trick I need the serial cable to hand controller-I hope the one I used to use with my CG5 will fit

many thanks

I will try ASAP