... driving me nuts.
Been using PHD since I started. At first, with SPC900NC as guide cam and whatever gear/software I had then, no dramas really. Was a bit of a resource hog, but it worked. I wasn't happy with the resolution/noise - had trouble finding stars to guide with.
Got a DSI II Pro, and it was also good and worked well. For a bit. Now, I'm having no end of trouble with PHD locking/freezing. Wasting so much of my precious few nights under the stars. I'm totally over it and want to use a decent guiding program.
Obviously trawled through threads here. I see Guidemaster, Metaguide, EQAlign, and more. I have installed but haven't used Guidemaster and Metaguide.
Last night I successfully used EQAlign for the first time for
drift aligning. But when I went to try to use it to guide, it kept coming up with a message box saying I need to calibrate before it can guide. I tried everything that I thought it was referring to and couldn't get it to work. I have asked a question on the EQAlign forum. But in the meantime...
I came across some threads that mention K3CCDTools does both drift alignment and guiding. I didn't realise this. I have v3 of it, but intended to use it for planetary imaging and to be honest haven't had a chance to play with it yet. How good/easy is the drift alignment and guiding components of it?
What other, better(?), guiding software is around? Preferably free, but if it costs a little and it saves me tearing what little hair I have left out, I'll take it.