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Guding gones wild in RA on Gemini 2

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Hi!

I just upgraded my Losmandy G11 to a Gemini 2 (from Gemini 1) and immediatly ran into a weird problem with guiding. Everything else seems fine so far, but guiding is totally off.

What happens is that I get wild swings in RA when guiding. But only when Dec is also guiding. I have attached guidelogs from PHD2 used with Ekos. There is a calibration sequence, then immediately guiding with the wild swings. Then I turn of DEC guiding (set to "off") and RA calms down. Then I turn on DEC and the wild swings starts again.

I log files from Ekos as well.

Then I stopped Indi and switched to Internal Guider. Same behavior, wild swings in RA. Should be in log file as well.

This does NOT happen in windows. I tried using ASCOM and PHD2, and there it seems to work nicely. I can supply log files for this as well from PHD2, but not here now as to avoid confusion.

Any ideas on what goes on here? Any setting in my system, or something with the driver?

Magnus
5 years 11 months ago #24765
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Are you using an ST4 cable for guiding or are you using the INDI mount connection? I have found the most luck with using an ST4 Cable. Also are the setting all the same on the windows setup and the Linux setup in PHD2? And lastly, did you try guiding with just PHD2 without INDI or KStars running? Just trying to narrow down the problem through experimentation. The question is whether it is a setting in KStars PHD2 or the driver, whether it is an issue with PHD on Linux, whether it is a problem with the INDI driver, or whether it is an issue with the connection.
5 years 11 months ago #24771

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Magnus,

I have used PHD2 and INDI guiding on a Raspberry Pi without issues with a Lodestar X2.

What camera are you using and what software settings are you using?
5 years 11 months ago #24776

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Log does not contain mount logging. Using ST4 or Pulse Guiding?
5 years 11 months ago #24779

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Hi!

Ah, sorry for not having mount logging. Will supply as soon as I can (next star visible).

I use pulse guiding, no ST4-cable, just the USB cable. I use a Lodestar. Indiserver installed on a R-Pi sitting by the telescope.

I'm not sure which settings I should look at. Camera settings were the same in Win as in Linux. Exposure 1s to 2 secs, Hysterisis and Resist switch algoritms. I have not tried PHD2 in Linux without PHD2, though. But I did try internal guider in Ekos without PHD2, same behavior - and that indicates to me that this is not PHD2 related. Right?

Phomer60: what settings should I check? There are a lot.... Since it works for you (with gemini 2, right, and the Losmandy Gemini driver?), it should be some kind of setting here. Basically, I did not change anything switching from the Gemini 1 to Gemini 2. It worked nicely with Gemini 1. Anything that should be changed doing that switch?

Magnus

Magnus
5 years 11 months ago #24782

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Magnus,

I was thinking of the settings under options - calibration and guide.

My problem at the moment is that I don't have my camera and don't know how to bring up my settings without it.
5 years 11 months ago #24789

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So The gemini driver uses the Meade pulse command guiding... does Gemini support its own pulse guiding routine or is it the same as Meade?

EDIT: Ok from the documentation, it supports the same format with this note:

:Mg<direction><time># Moves into <direction> "e", "w", "n", "s" for <time> milliseconds. <time> is converted into motor encoder ticks, in L4 the result must not exceed 255 or will be cut off modulo 256.

So if you have L4, this might be a problem as anything above 255ms will be cut off
Last edit: 5 years 11 months ago by Jasem Mutlaq.
5 years 11 months ago #24814

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My recommendation would be to try an st4 cable to see if you get better results. I have had a Gemini 1 for about 8 years now. For years I was guiding with pulse commands and never really got great results. I used different software packages, different computer types, and still did not get good results. (Mac, Linux, PHD, PHD2, KStars, direct USB, over INDI, etc.) I had not tried an ST4 cable because my camera didnt have an ST4 out jack. I bought a ZWO ASI 120 usb3 because I thought the issue was related to pixel size. It gave no real improvement though. But about 5 months ago I tried the ST4 jack and saw immediate improvement. I got even more improvement when I started running PHD2 on a raspberry Pi stuck right on the mount so no communication or image download delays.

Thanks,

Rob
5 years 11 months ago #24816

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Hi!
So, after a few days of clouds, here is a log with mount driver data as well. Same behavior - wild swings in RA when guiding also in Dec. I have turned Dec on and off a few times - each time I turn it off, RA calms down, each time I turn it on, it goes wild again. Attached is both INDI, Ekos and PHD2 logs.

Magnus
5 years 11 months ago #24841
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Hi again!

And now I can confirm that using the ST4-cable instead seems to work nicely. No swings at all, good guiding behavior.

Maagnus
5 years 11 months ago #24843

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Hi!

A slight update: ST4 works, but my experience now, is that it does not work as nicely as I first said. I cannot get guding below 1", even though I previously, with Gemini 1, hade 0,6-0,7" as standard. And the experience among many Losmandy users seems to be that performance is better with pulse. However, I am going to explore this further next week (travelling this week). And if we could get the pulse guiding to work, that would be wonderful!

Magnus
5 years 11 months ago #24906

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Hi!

Any hope of any progress on this? Tried tonight and still same problem: wild swings in RA when mount connected through Indi, much calmer when "on-camera" But guiding quality not as good as it used to be with connection throgu Indi.

Magnus
5 years 11 months ago #25376

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