Help: PHD with QHY5 and HEQ

[jmcgowan (Jeremy)]

Hello fellow IISers. Hoping for some help.

I am new here as a thread submitter, but have been a member for a few months. I have also bought two significant bits of kit from memebers here via the IIS classifieds.

I also have a PM in to one of my seller's about this very issue I have re PHD, but I would like to cast the net wider to this community as I have been having issues to find 'clear and present' answers re PHD.

Let me clarify my setup:

Celestron Nextar 6" OTA
GSO 50mm f/scope and QHY5 a/guide
HEQ5 mount with skyscan
Canon 300D
Some basic Plossl's and bits
Small and curious dog, lazy fat cat.

The issue I am having is trying to understand PHD, hence this forum.

Everything else hardware-wise works fine (50mm F/S and QHY5 A/G still in the learning stage for me).

But I can't make heads or tails of PHD.

> Camera selection = no QHY5 option (yes, there is a QHY5 II, but I can't connect). In fact I can't connect camera via any option.
> Mount - what does this mean and why only 5 or so options? No HEQ5 option. Does 'mount' mean something else?
> Help options on PHD not very helpful. Hence these questions.
> I have downloaded V1.14.0 for W7.

Dont get me wrong, PHD looks and sounds great and many people use it, but why do I stumble at what I consider simple setup issues (ie: lack of connect options)

Why do I sound so dumb??

Thanks in advance, from me and Kami the dog. Cat doesn't care.

I know someone in this great group will have some insight, or links to other aleady proven solutions.

Kind regards - Jeremy

[Tandum (Robin)]

Jeremy,
You need to run the qhy5 as an ascom camera.

1. You'll need to install Ascom Platform 6SP1 from here -> http://ascom-standards.org/

2. You'll have to*install the QHY5 Driver from here -> http://qhyccd.com/en/top/download/

3. Now install the qhy5 Ascom driver from here -> http://qhyccd.com/en/top/download/

You have to do it in that order.

Now in phd you can use an ascom camera and select the qhy5.

[jmcgowan (Jeremy)]

Thanks Robin - I'll give that a crack.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

A couple of things...
Under Win7 yes you need to use the ASCOM driver, under XP you use the QCCD labs camera setting.
This will get the camera connected to PHD.
If you then use the ST-4 cable between the camera and the ST-4 port on the mount you select the mount as "On Camera"

[jmcgowan (Jeremy)]

Thanks for the tips Ken - much appreciated.

Regards

Jeremy

[White Rabbit]

I use to have one of these mounts. You will need the following.

Ascom 6, down load here http://ascom-standards.org/
EQMod, down load here http://sourceforge.net/projects/eq-mod/files/ you need eq EQASCOM file.
Serial to USB converter or EQ direct cable and the QSI Driver

Plug the serial cable into the pc and the bottom of the hand controller. You dont need to enter any details into the hand controller as it will not be controlling the mount EQ mod will. You will need to put the hand controller into PC direct mode though so it knows to relay commands through to the mount from the PC. Check the manual for PC direct mode. I think it's in utilities menu of the hand controller.


Once you have installed all of the above open PHD and and click on the camera tab. It will bring up the list of cameras select yours and the click ok.
Then click on the image of telescope and the ascom telescope mount selector should open scroll down until you see Eqmod select it and then select properties in the mount selector. Entre all your details GPS positions ect and click ok and click ok on the ASOM mount selector. Your mount and camera should now be connected. Press the button next to the telescope button (i think it looks like a circular arrow from memory) and the camera should start taking frames.
Select about 2 second or over exposures so you arnt trying to guide out bad seeing conditions then clinck on a star. A green box should now apear around the star. click on the PHD button next to the arrow button and PHD should start a calibration run. this tells PHD what orientation your camera is in and what your arcseconds per pixel (distance in space per pixel) are so it knows how to much to mover the mount to correct the guiding.

It all sounds easy enough but now comes the black majik part where you pull your hair out and have to sacrifice a few chickens lol.


Make sure you mount is polar aligned as perfectly as you can get it and the mount is balance really well with it being slightly east heavy. The less these mounts have to take direction the better, but you can get them to track really well if you have all your ducks lined up.

If you find that you mount is well polar aligned and PHD cant complete a calibration run. Press the stop button on PHD then press the brain button and change you calibrations step to a larger number. Mind is set to 2000 I think the default is 1000, it depends on you focal length.
I use to have my RA aggressiveness set to about 47 My hist at about 6, max dec and max ra will depend on a lot of different things you just need to have a play around with them until your graph looks reasonably flat.

Read this thread http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...show+phd+graph there is a lot of useful info on it written buy people alot more knowlegeble than me.

Also youtube EQMod there are a whole lot of video tutorials, on EQ mod.

Have fun but remember, no one ever said this hobby was easy lol.

Regards
Sandy

[White Rabbit]

In case you are unsure how to polar align read this http://njstargazer.org/polaralignment.asp in particular the PHD method it's probably the quickest easiest way to do it other than purchasing something like Pem Pro.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

WR,
The OP was asking about the QHY5/PHD interface....
You don't need EQMod etc to be able to guide with QHY5/PHD/HEQ5 mount....
(IMHO all that comes later)

[jmcgowan (Jeremy)]

Thanks Sandy and Ken

All input appreciated.

Although not a wizz at old school Polar aligns (ie compass and inclonmeter) I believe I've now done it twice with this method with my HEQ, and with success with 3 star alignment both times. Thanks to my other seller for vast tips.

I can get shades of black and white from QHY5 when connected to QGvideo (ie: if i take the lens cap off the spotter scope, it goes white, if I cover it with my hand, it goes black.) No worries.

I have also downloaded all of the drivers Robin kindly suggested in Post 2. I use the ASCOM option as Ken pointed out in post 4 for camera, then I can only use the ASCOM option for the mount and choose say 'Generic Hub' (whatever that is).

I do get the message at the bottom of PHD that indicates both mount and camera are connected, then once I hit the loop arrow button, I get white static. I come back to my point in post 1 that the options seem very limited in PHD, but I now had hoped ASCOM would get me around that.

This is the most annoying part - looks like all the hardware is powered up and red lights blinking everywhere, just a few bits of software can't seem to even find each other.

Most other camera options indicatate "no camera found" for example.

Guess what, I can even open PHD, select ASCOM camera, and ASCOM mount and have PHD tell me its connected - without even having any cables connected to my laptop. That doesn't sound right, but it can be done. >?<

Hufffff. Very frustrating.

Am away for work for next few days so will try again at night with the whole setup, but feel annoyed this is such a complex task.

However, when I ask my neighbour how his day was after being out fishing in his boat, he says "Didn't catch anything, but thats why they call it fishing, not catching".

So true.

Thanks all again - open to new help/ ideas

Jeremy

ps Ken, what is an OP? Maybe Ordinary Practitioner?
Ha ha

[Tandum (Robin)]

There is no need to connect to your mount from phd using ascom in the first instance. There is an option called on-camera which makes the guide pulses come out of the guide port on the camera. You'll need the st4 cable to connect that port to the guide port on the mount. When you select ascom as the camera a selection box pops up and you need to pick qhy5 off the list in that box.

Once it is looping/capturing you'll need to focus so point it at some stars. You can try and get close during the day but I doubt you'll get exposures short enough to show anything but a white screen, but may be worth a shot. The image from an qhy5 is pretty dirty, lots of lines and crap but if you take some auto darks in phd it will clean the image up a lot and make it easier to focus. There is a button to take the dark frames and a prompt to put the lens cap on the scope. If you change exposure time you'll have to redo the darks.

If all that works then you can look at eqmod which is the ascom driver for that mount. It sounds like you have selected POTH Hub which is an ascom device which manages a mount, a dome and a focuser all in one spot once poth is configured. You won't need to use poth.

[Tandum (Robin)]

Originally Posted by Merlin66

under XP you use the QCCD labs camera setting.

Ken, this requires the really old original qhy5 windows driver and that driver hasn't been on a website in about 3 years. You need some sort of windows driver for any hardware, even a mouse has a driver, so windows knows how to talk to it. All qhy cameras are ascom now and basically that ascom driver talks to windows which talks to the qhy windows driver.

In the newest phd you can select a qhy5 II as they have programmed it to talk directly to windows to get to the qhy5 II driver that way and I believe the next version will have native support for the qhy5L II also.

[jmcgowan (Jeremy)]

Thanks again Robin - let me have another go this weekend.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Robin,
Thanks for that.
I had great dificulty updating drivers for Win7.
Jeremy,
You mention GQvideo...which version of the QHY5 do you have??
The original was a single shot camera and the later QHY5v a video camera....

[White Rabbit]

Originally Posted by Merlin66

WR,
The OP was asking about the QHY5/PHD interface....
You don't need EQMod etc to be able to guide with QHY5/PHD/HEQ5 mount....
(IMHO all that comes later)

Ahhh, of course, it's an auto guider lol. I'd still advise installing EQmod if you are running an HEQ5 though. It has some very handy features.

[jmcgowan (Jeremy)]

Ken

OP - gotta be Opening Post. Space talk right? I'm down with it now.

If not I'll go with Ordinary Practitioner per below.

Yes, base model I believe (2nd hand).

Robin

When I use the On Camera option as you suggest, I get a heap of "pulse error" alerts everytime. I wonder if this is a driver issue?

My gear is 250km away at the moment, so I'll get some more precise detail, maybe a screen shot, this weekend.

Thanks again all.

Jeremy

[Tandum (Robin)]

Never heard of that one but if you have poth selected somewhere you'll get pulse guide not supported errors, or something like that.