Like to think I've tried every possible method of polar aligning over the years. Many swear by Alignmaster, but for me drift aligning still seems the most robust and relatively fast way of getting well aligned.
I only just installed PHD2 last night, clouds came to spoil everything. I will test this as well
I have been quite happy with PHD for a while now, so this a really good feature. I have been using EQAlign for a while but having camera image intensity and tracking issues with it.
Tried the PHD2 Polar Alignment Tool myself last night - looks really good and easy to use. In between intermittent cloud I got much better alignment than I already had ...... but I'll have to finish it when the sky clears.
I really like Alignmaster but I have too many obstacles in my backyard to get a matching set of stars to use. Tried updating the selection of stars but still don't get a good match.
PHD2 was dead simply to use and I didn't even read the manual ..... but I will read it before I refine my polar alignment further.
I reckon PHD2 will be my tool of choice going forward
I have had good results with Alignmaster but yes even with the extra stars added if you have obstructions it could be difficult to find a pair both in view. This method is a good backup if you get stuck.
It really is worth using the purple circle when adjusting altitude and azimuth in the polar alignment tool in PHD2 - reduces the number of iterations to get great alignment down to a 2-3 in most cases.
A trick I've been using from home when I have a network connection is to run Teamviewer on my iPhone so I can zoom in and see the camera window in PHD2 while outside near the mount. Saves moving/turning the laptop and very convenient during the all important "tweaking" phase.
Seeing as we are discussing PHD2 I have a question. I have used PHD2 a number of times and it seems like fabulous software and its free!
But it also seems, unless I am not setting it up well, that it will drop out easily if the guide star SNR falls too low and stop autoguiding.
I am used to CCDSoft where the guide star is locked on and even with clouds it can easily reacquire if your mount is well polar aligned.
PHD2 seems eager to quit. That means a lot of potentially lost images from a night if a few small clouds come over early in the evening.
How do you find this? Is there a setting to reduce this quitting effect?
Alas, I think its fair to say she's a "quitter" alright Greg. Peter B pointed out to me at AF you can pick what SNR limit you want to aim for.
But......if you're using PHD2 with Sequence Generator then SGP will automatically attempt guiding recovering if you do lose a guidestar (along with re-centering, refocus etc as programmed). So this makes the loss of guidestar a bit less problematic. Also possible to set up SMS/email alerts to warn SGP/PHD2 is in trouble and on the defensive as an add-in, but just as easy to have Teamviewer or VNC running if at your home site.
As an open source project it might be possible to re-program some of this. There are gurus up here that have dug into the code at times.
I would not say PHD is a quitter as during astrofest at times faint cloud was coming in and you could see the guide star almost disappear on the screen. The alarm went off about the decreasing mass of the guide star and continued while the cloud was around. At intervals the guide star would completely disappear and say 5 seconds later re-appear. PHD picked up on the guide star and continued guiding. I was using SGP as well.
Wouldn't call it a quitter in my experience.
Allan
If calling such wonderful freeware a "quitter" is too strong, I'd be happy to wind it back to something like "if you do lose your guidestar during thick cloud there is no auto recovery within PHD2 itself, however there is powerful external control/scripting capability".
(Rob turns and salutes in direction of Craig Stark, far away over the horizon.....)
So if you lower the SNR required and increase the time out time it may continue to try to guide?
I am not sure if PHD2 allows the use of binning as it says it uses the RAW data. So that could also help.
Perhaps also use a focal reducer to beef up the SNR may help also.
Its a very sophisticated program apart from this and I wondering whether I had it setup properly and there was more leeway with the settings so it continued to try for extended times when those odd clouds do come over.
Another trick (besides binning) in PHD2 is to select median x2 or x3 for noise reduction. Another way of boosting signal on noisey cameras or on fields with very noisey stars.
Definitely worth perusing the settings Greg. Its come a very long way since early PHD versions, and real time "tweakability" right up there with Maxim now.
If calling such wonderful freeware a "quitter" is too strong, I'd be happy to wind it back to something like "if you do lose your guidestar during thick cloud there is no auto recovery within PHD2 itself, however there is powerful external control/scripting capability".
(Rob turns and salutes in direction of Craig Stark, far away over the horizon.....)
That happened to me at AF on the Tues night. Not sure if you use Sequence Generator Pro? I do, and it quits the sequence when guide star lost. Didn't figure out til we got back, there's a setting in SGP to auto recover.
Yes Troy, but I think I've still got a bit to learn about how to optimise SGP recovery. Having said that, my trust in the SGP/PHD2 suite (and hopefully understanding ) is far greater having watched them work much more closely over the week at AF.
Quite a few times there were "aha moments" where failures due to settings that would previous have botched an overnight run were obvious watching in realtime. e.g My top pickup for the week was from Geoff and Allan - turn EQMOD sync'ing over to Dialog Based rather than Append on Sync - made post meridian flip centring much more reliable.
Also some useful tweaking of autofocus settings, but I'm drifting off the PHD2 discussion now... (err, no pun intended....)
) is far greater having watched them work much more closely over the week at AF. 
