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Hi there! I have been trying to get my mount set up with my computer for a really long time now. I just got a new EQDIR cable and the PC finally connects to the mount, so I am now able to slew it wherever I want. My equipment:
Software:
Now that the hardware part is correct I still have to get the software to work. I tried to usa a simulated camera to test if everything works correctly. I want to use the PHD2 guiding software and when I tried to start calibrating the mount, i got the error "Calibration failed. Ra didn't move enough". I already looked at several websites and found that I should look at the advanced settings to check that the PC gives a long enough signal [ms]. After I got everything in there correct (i hope), the error message didn't stop showing up. Is this normal when using a simulated camera with your real mount? Last night i tried to connect my mount to my actual camera and i found that it worked. It lost the star a couple of times during calibration until I stopped it again and chose the star manually, because it used a second star the first time which was barely visible. After the mount was calibrated it stared to guide the mount as it should. Now that calibration was solved and it was guiding I got the error message "Star lost. Low HFD". I looked up what this could be and found that I can change the HFD to a smaller value (star detection threshold). This solved this error message but now another one popped up. It said that the Star was now lost because it had changed its size. I also tried to find a solution on the internet but got no good information anywhere. As you can already guess I would like to know why this error occurs and how I can solve it. This are my guide and debug logs (in zip format because debug log is more than 1MB): Log files.zip I am not sure if the zip works as it should. If not please guide me how to upload the files. Any help appreciated! Thanks in advance. Luke |
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| Low HFD usually means either clouds passing by or really poor focus. Have you used an IR filter for the camera? That helps in focusing if the camera is IR capable. Given that you have a 50mm f/3.8 there should be plenty of them stars available. Enable multi-star guiding as well. |
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Did you take a couple of dark frames for the exposure time youre guiding with? This can help removing hot pixels, which sometimes can cause problems, too. In my experience, a decent focus is desirable but not neccessary. However, better focus also gives more signal. Very important is calibrating the guider, and having not too much backlash or inbalance. |
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My suggestion is to use the Profile wizard in PHD2. If you have gone thru that it prompts you to take a “dark library” as @HR_Maurer suggests. You are going to want to do this with your scope pointed within say an hour of the meridian and close to “0” declination which should put you in the southern sky somewhere. Once you do that and get PHD2 guiding for a couple of minutes, I like to then go to the “guiding assistant” and run that for 2 minutes (again follow the prompts) once it goes thru that process then look at possibly changing your settings. If you get thru that process most of the time your guiding will be pretty good with maybe a couple of tweaks here and there depending on how your nights vary. For the most part PHD2 is fool proof. Good Luck! Dale |
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Hi Luke, I don't understand the part where you connected the mount to the camera. The camera is connected to the PC and PHD2. If you're guiding with that guidescope you should have plenty of stars in the field to choose from. Do you see them? That's the basic and most important question. What exposure do you use for guiding? 2-3 should work. First I would make sure that the guide scope is in focus. A classic problem since it will cause the stars to be very dim. When the signal is very weak, it will lose the star. Put sufficient detection around the star (the square where it looks for the star). If your mount moves too much, it will lose the star. CS, Bogdan |
