What guiding software do you use?

[Octane (Humayun)]

Fred,

It means someone's voted in the poll. That's all.

H

[danielsun]

Thanks for the detailed post Mathew,
I have only ever used PHD so I can't coment on others but since Martin (Mill) helped me get going I am now getting the hang of PHD and found that you really have to spend the time experimenting with settings and that also depends on what part of the sky you are pointing at.
Weight is also critical, I found that having a pefectly balanced scope is crucial for accurate guiding which most probably already know.
I use PHD with EQ MOD and works well for me.

Cheers Daniel.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by danielsun

Weight is also critical, I found that having a pefectly balanced scope is crucial for accurate guiding which most probably already know.
I use PHD with EQ MOD and works well for me.

That's sort of the opposite to some people's conclusions. I find PHD tracks better with the load slightly east heavy. It holds some weight on the RA worm so it is always pushing and things like wind have less effect.

It does mean I have to rebalance by moving one weight about an inch after a meridian flip.

[danielsun]

Actually your right Andrew, ever so slight East heavy is good.

Cheers Daniel.

[spacezebra (Petra)]

PHD for me.

Cheers Petra d.

[leon]

Yep I to have mine East heavy ever so slightly, I works for me.

leon

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Works for me too.
Chris (omaroo) put me on to that. I'm ever so grateful for the tip too.

[g__day (Matthew)]

Must say PHD 1.12.4 is pretty good software - used correctly. I still think you need to understand correcting seeing errors versus real tracking errors and wished PHD assessed backlash in a more sophisticated way.

Craig has put the controls for the main parameters for PHD onto the graph - so you can change settings on the fly and see immediately if this improves tracking or not. I still wish there was some fuzzy logic to do a bit of a Monte Carlo diagnostic on these key parameters (altering each on in turn by a set delta to see if tracking gets better or worse), Sure it would take a while - but on a bad seeing night - leave it running for a few hours then you'd have detailed information on both optimal settings and how much better the best settings are from other settings.

Lastly I wish Craig would finally add multi-star guiding (like the add on for MaximDL that achieves multi star guiding). I found an article on this I sent Craig; it determined once you guide on the averaged movements of 5+ stars - seeing errors decrease by about 50% - a worthwhile gain in my eyes!

[RobF (Rob)]

Originally Posted by g__day

Must say PHD 1.12.4 is pretty good software - used correctly. I still think you need to understand correcting seeing errors versus real tracking errors and wished PHD assessed backlash in a more sophisticated way.

Craig has put the controls for the main parameters for PHD onto the graph - so you can change settings on the fly and see immediately if this improves tracking or not. I still wish there was some fuzzy logic to do a bit of a Monte Carlo diagnostic on these key parameters (altering each on in turn by a set delta to see if tracking gets better or worse), Sure it would take a while - but on a bad seeing night - leave it running for a few hours then you'd have detailed information on both optimal settings and how much better the best settings are from other settings.

Lastly I wish Craig would finally add multi-star guiding (like the add on for MaximDL that achieves multi star guiding). I found an article on this I sent Craig; it determined once you guide on the averaged movements of 5+ stars - seeing errors decrease by about 50% - a worthwhile gain in my eyes!

Matthew I've never had any luck getting that multi star plugin for Maxim to co-operate. Do you use it regularly?

[g__day (Matthew)]

No I don't - I went back to the simplicity of PHD - as Mamim running proved invasive with the image capture of the Canon EOS driver I used. But I did pass on the research data I found to Craig for consideration - hope he eventually gets round to including it when life gets a bit less busy for him!

Matt

[RobF (Rob)]

Ta. Sounds like Phd continues to keep getting better and better for those that use.

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by troypiggo

Wow. While I was expecting PHD to be a favourite among users, I wasn't expecting it to dominate so much - nearly 60% of users. And 40% of them have tried other software and switched back. Interesting.

Keep them votes and comments coming please!

This is not surprising. PHD is free and works quite well. Maxim works a little better (IMO), but costs $500. Good freeware is always going to win over good costware.
Geoff

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Since posting this thread, I've recently bought MaxIm. It's a steep learning curve, and I'm comfortable using MaxIm for the image capture, even calibrating and stacking etc. But I hadn't used it for guiding. I was going to give it a go up at Astrofest the last week, but could see I was going to lose a bit too much of my only 2 nights there learning, so went back to good ol' PHD. I do intend to persevere and play with MaxIm's guiding at home and see if I can get it tweaked.

[jase (Jason)]

Does PHD handle telescope declination changes automatically or do you need to recalibrate every time you change to another target of a different dec?

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by jase

Does PHD handle telescope declination changes automatically or do you need to recalibrate every time you change to another target of a different dec?

As a rule always recalibrate in the part of the sky you're going to image in. There are far too many variables mostly shifts in balance. Takes only a couple of minutes and saves a lot of heartaches. Not worth the shortcut.

[jase (Jason)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

As a rule always recalibrate in the part of the sky you're going to image in. There are far too many variables mostly shifts in balance. Takes only a couple of minutes and saves a lot of heartaches. Not worth the shortcut.

Ah, but thats the catch Marc. MaximDL when connected to your scope via ASCOM will read the declination information and use this to compensate for guider movement. Providing you get good calibration once (nice red L shape indicating movement), then you can technically shoot anywhere in the sky and not recalibrate. I've not recalibrated for over six months and shoot objects at various declinations. Guiding is spot on. If however you have a temporary set up in which you setup and tear down each night, changes to the guider PA will alter the calibration.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by jase

Ah, but thats the catch Marc. MaximDL when connected to your scope via ASCOM will read the declination information and use this to compensate for guider movement. Providing you get good calibration once (nice red L shape indicating movement), then you can technically shoot anywhere in the sky and not recalibrate. I've not recalibrated for over six months and shoot objects at various declinations. Guiding is spot on. If however you have a temporary set up in which you setup and tear down each night, changes to the guider PA will alter the calibration.

I'm afraid PHD is not that advanced. Does Maxim re-acquire a star when you slew to different coordinates as well?
What you are saying about calibrating once. There are other variables such as mount mechanics, squareness of the shafts and gears, etc... Does maxim gets this info from the mount as well, like what Gemini does when you build a model?

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Must admit I recalibrate every time I slew to different part of sky or meridian flip.

[jase (Jason)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

I'm afraid PHD is not that advanced. Does Maxim re-acquire a star when you slew to different coordinates as well?
What you are saying about calibrating once. There are other variables such as mount mechanics, squareness of the shafts and gears, etc... Does maxim gets this info from the mount as well, like what Gemini does when you build a model?

After a slew to different coordinates, you simply take a guider image and then click on guide button. MaximDL will automatically select the most suitable guide star and start guiding. Of course you can override Maxim's guide star selection process if you choose but its 99% accurate in selecting a guide star thats away from other stars for clean centroid calculations. MaximDL will also handle pier flips (meridian flips) where the RA/Dec corrections alter depending on which side the telescope mount is pointing. This is handled automatically.

[Terry B]

The need to recalibrate is why I rarely use PHD. I use guidemaster even though it is old. I can reuse the calibration from previous nights. Most of my imaging is for photometry targets and I don't need perfect guiding and it is close enough to use the old calibrations.