What guiding software do you use?

[multiweb (Marc)]

I'm going to be using Maxim soon to guide with the mono and the AO so it'll be interesting. Sounds like you can do a lot more with it. With PHD I always recalibrate. I think you need too. That's why a lot of people are getting caught with DEC drifts and overshoot of all kinds I guess.

[netwolf]

Do Maxim or CCDsoft talk to PHD? Just wondering how you might get the Dithering to work if your capture program does not talk to the Guide program.

[jase (Jason)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

...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?

Apologies Marc, I only glanced at this comment and failed to respond in my original post.

No, MaximDL will not take into consideration the variables you note such as mount mechanics etc., when guiding. Perhaps I should flip the table and challenge you to name guiding software that does. Despite what many believe, recalibration doesn't do this either. For example, there maybe a spot on the worm gear that causes the mount to run faster than true RA. As calibration doesn't process a full worm rotation to detect this, it doesn't know about it. It is only picked up in regular guiding corrections.

Point being is that guiding should be seen as a last resort, not a band-aid to poor set up issues. Start with the basics, get your rig balanced, train periodic error correction, precisely polar align etc. Ultimately the goal is to get the set up tracking as good as possible. When this has been achieved you'll get the most out of guiding.

I may have painted a picture that MaximDL does it all and then some. I will admit its guiding capabilities are very strong, probably the best on the market however all software has its pros/cons. Regardless of the software used, guiding is reactive tool. As highlighted, there are many things that can be done to an imaging rig to improve performance or should I say make it proactive. As the saying goes, prevention is better than a cure...and that cure is guiding.

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Once i set up my equipment i calibrate once with Maxim on the the first night, then don't do it again unless I move the camera or take down and set up again.
Geoff

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by jase

No, MaximDL will not take into consideration the variables you note such as mount mechanics etc., when guiding. Perhaps I should flip the table and challenge you to name guiding software that does.

PHD doesn't either. I tought maybe Maxim did. I don't know of any software that takes those into consideration. I think the GCC with the G11 uses this info for GOTO accuracy only.

Originally Posted by jase

Despite what many believe, recalibration doesn't do this either. For example, there maybe a spot on the worm gear that causes the mount to run faster than true RA. As calibration doesn't process a full worm rotation to detect this, it doesn't know about it. It is only picked up in regular guiding corrections.

Agreed. But good loaded PEC data would take care of that then guiding on top.

Originally Posted by jase

Point being is that guiding should be seen as a last resort, not a band-aid to poor set up issues. Start with the basics, get your rig balanced, train periodic error correction, precisely polar align etc. Ultimately the goal is to get the set up tracking as good as possible. When this has been achieved you'll get the most out of guiding.

I may have painted a picture that MaximDL does it all and then some. I will admit its guiding capabilities are very strong, probably the best on the market however all software has its pros/cons. Regardless of the software used, guiding is reactive tool. As highlighted, there are many things that can be done to an imaging rig to improve performance or should I say make it proactive. As the saying goes, prevention is better than a cure...and that cure is guiding.

I agree with all that you say for a permanent set-up that you can tune iteratively night after night closing down towards a perfect solution but on the field without guiding I'd be up the s||t creek. In practice I have limited time to set-up, align and guide to maximize my imaging time so there's a lot of compromise and good enough is just that. One day if I get an obs maybe I'll look into doing things the right way.

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Originally Posted by netwolf

Do Maxim or CCDsoft talk to PHD? Just wondering how you might get the Dithering to work if your capture program does not talk to the Guide program.

I don't think so. Not from my limited knowledge of MaxIm, anyway. I know Nebulosity can talk to the PHD server and do the dithering, but they're both written by Mr Stark so that makes sense.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by troypiggo

I don't think so. Not from my limited knowledge of MaxIm, anyway. I know Nebulosity can talk to the PHD server and do the dithering, but they're both written by Mr Stark so that makes sense.

I would have thought Maxim capable of dithering on its own. It's gotta be. I use dithering in Neb all the time. It also good to bump the mount now and then so it doesn't go to sleep and start drifting.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

I would have thought Maxim capable of dithering on its own. It's gotta be.

Yes it does, via guide or mount offset.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Yes it does, via guide or mount offset.

Cool. I'm going to have to learn it now because it is the only thing that will run my AO.

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

I would have thought Maxim capable of dithering on its own. It's gotta be. I use dithering in Neb all the time. It also good to bump the mount now and then so it doesn't go to sleep and start drifting.

It does. I was responding to a question about it talking to phd, which is different to it dithering it's own guiding.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

I find the choices a bit twisted by your own bias.
Not hard to tell you like PHD.

My guiding experiences started with GuideDog, which is reasonable. But I soon changed to Guidemaster and was amazed at the simplicity and quality of it.
It made GuideDog look like a toy.

What I like about Guidemaster is the ease of use, simplicity in layout, accuracy, and it is definitely not clunky. The onscreen image is very crisp with nice stars, and the guiding error graphs are great.
Not once have I ever had a problem with Guidemaster in 5 years of using it.

I did try PHD and gave up. Too clunky.
At Astro Camp I like to watch others at work, and the amount of times I see others struggle to get PHD working 'just right' is too many.

PHD may suit a lot of people, but my personal choice is guidemaster

[Tandum (Robin)]

Originally Posted by ghsmith45

Once i set up my equipment i calibrate once with Maxim on the the first night, then don't do it again unless I move the camera or take down and set up again.
Geoff

It doesn't want to guide for me after a flip, I've tried all the options to reverse axis, but it just pushes the star away, so I've been recalibrating. What am I doing wrong?

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Originally Posted by ballaratdragons

I find the choices a bit twisted by your own bias.
Not hard to tell you like PHD

Actually, I don't like PHD over anything else. At the time I created this poll, I was very frustrated with how resource hungry PHD and was looking for alternatives. As I said earlier in this thread, the only reason I had a few options there for PHD was that I expected it to be the most popular and was interested to see a bit more of a breakup of the results.

I have MaxIm now and the next time I set up it will be to learn and get the guiding working on my gear with it.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by troypiggo

Actually, I don't like PHD over anything else. At the time I created this poll, I was very frustrated with how resource hungry PHD and was looking for alternatives. As I said earlier in this thread, the only reason I had a few options there for PHD was that I expected it to be the most popular and was interested to see a bit more of a breakup of the results.

I have MaxIm now and the next time I set up it will be to learn and get the guiding working on my gear with it.

[Tandum (Robin)]

Originally Posted by Tandum

It doesn't want to guide for me after a flip, I've tried all the options to reverse axis, but it just pushes the star away, so I've been recalibrating. What am I doing wrong?

I found it, Auto Pier Flip has to be ticked. It worked for me tonight

[RB (Andrew)]

Haven't tried any other software, I'm very happy with PHD and never had any issues.

[p1taylor]

Same here PHD never had any trouble with it.

peter

[Paul Haese]

Well I started with PHD, but have now moved onto MaximDL which is better at guiding. PHD is great with simplicity but MaximDL is the same, but had move control over the values you can set.

I can recommend PHD for beginners and then Maxim for more advanced needs.

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

I want to try Maxim DL but have had issues with it recognising the SSAG. Anyone else had this issue?
It's usually when I have had a DSLR or ccd selected as first camera and had PHD running before hand.
Any tips?
Graham

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Maybe start a new thread on it? But did you make sure PHD was closed and/or not still connected to the camera. I don't have a SSAG, but use a QHY5. I know there are driver issues there, and in Maxim have to select it as "ASCOM" camera/driver for camera 2.