[Spookyer (Brett)]

Hi all, I am new to the whole guiding thing. I was just after a bit of advice on how I could improve the results I get from my setup.

To guide my 925mm focal length refractor I have a ST80 guidescope in Losmandy rings clamped to a top plate fixed to the rings of the OTA. It all seems pretty solid. I have threaded spacer tubes extending from the focuser of the ST80 to allow focus with the QHY5ii guide camera. The focus tube on the ST80 itself is extended less than 10mm. I got longer spacers than I needed to achieve focus with the guide cam so I wouldn't have to rack the focus tube of the ST80 out much as I was concerned it might flex when extended. The QHY5ii camera on the end is very light and overall the system seems very rigid to me.

I have been using PHD2, I don't know if it guides any better than PHD but I do know that the interface is easier for me to read on my laptop.

The QHY5ii guide camera seems very sensitive and gives a few stars to choose from each time I have used it. It seems to calibrate okay an hold the target star no problems.

I ensure I have balanced the scope in both axis when setting up on my AP Mach 1 mount.

Last weekend I left the PHD2 settings at default and didn't mess with them. For the most part the guiding graph while going up and down constantly was within +/- 1 pixel and most of that time is was within .75 of a pixel. My parameters on the left of the graph were typically between .25 and .5 of a pixel in RA and Dec.

I did have a few times where there were departures from the above and had multi pixel deviations over a period of 5 seconds or so which subsequently ruined the subs as there was noticeable smearing of the stars. I do not know what caused these departures and they corrected within about 5 seconds without me changing the settings.

I guess I am wanting to know how I would go about improving my guiding using my current setup to get more consistency so I can do longer subs?

Is there any advice about settings I should be using in PHD2 that would suit my setup?

Brett