I'm very new to this. The 3 opportunities I've had so far to set up with clear skies have been spent just setting up the mount, learning a few "important" stars, and practising aligning using the SynScan 1, 2, or 3 star alignments. Haven't taken a single photo yet.
Last night I got to a point where I was pretty happy with the alignment, so thought I've give PHD Guiding a go and try to take my first exposures. This is where some questions come in.
1. Selecting the camera - I have the Philips SPC900NC and GPUSB, and chose the Windows WDM(?) camera (
I assume this was correct?), then the camera (choice of 2 here since laptop has a built-in webcam also), then got a list full of resolutions with letters after them (eg 640x480 QYUX or something like that). At this point I had no idea which one to select, so picked one with max resolution. There were several choices all with same resolution.
What do the letters mean and which one should I be selecting?
2. I couldn't get the thing to focus. Was just getting a screen full of white noise. Eventually pointed at the moon and focused on that, then pointed back at some stars. Realised the gamma correction slider was half, so slid it all the way up and could finally make out some of the brighter stars only. Was surprised at the amount of noise.
Any way to improve this other than what I did? What if I'm shooting something in a region where these isn't a star bright enough to show over all the noise?
3. After selecting a star and starting guiding, all appeared to be going well for a bit. It was tracking ok (I think). But then the star started drifting out of the "box" and PHD Guiding window started beeping and flashing, and I noticed the star was out of the guide crosshairs.
How did this happen? Sort of defeats the purpose of autoguiding?
Any answers, tips, help appreciated.
PS - still didn't get to take any exposures
