Lost tracking/guiding [Solved]

Hello,

Yesterday was my 1st attempt to automate the shooting. I pointed to M31, and requested 240 images 60 sec each, then hit the sack... In the morning I found that I have my 240 images, but only the 1st 25 are correct, and exactly at 00:06 local time things didn't go well...
Attached is the 00:05 and the 00:06

Any idea what went wrong? how to track and identify the error? and how to prevent such errors in the future...

00:05	00:06

okay. Looks like you are also using the ASI120MM Mini guide camera. It is interesting to see whether this caused by it or not.

Tom

Probably lost your guide star.

Possible Actions:

1. Increase guiding exposure time.
2. Look at SEP Multistar (new feature) in latest versions of Ekos, can help track a moving guide star by referencing the positions of other stars in a field.
3. OAG badly out of focus? Not parfocal or focusing failure?

I have the ASI120MC-S on an OAG, and sometimes images seem rather noisy, soon to upgrade to the ASI290MM mini for the OAG - hope for better SNR, and lower noise in general, plus it is mono, so should be better on many fronts.

gilesco wrote: Probably lost your guide star.

Thank you gilesco for your advise. I have a question here, is the mount is supposed to be tracking anyway regardless of guiding? AFAIK guiding is to correct the tracking inaccuracies. In the 00:06 forwards it feels to me that tracking also stopped. Any ideas?


Thank you
Mohamed

The mount should be attempting to track, if it is an Equatorial and well aligned then I wouldn't expect to see a very large deviation.

To many parameters in play for me to say, some more experienced people might have some input.

It happened again today but after the 1st sequence. It is not the guider (works fine) it is the tracking. EKOS tracking was changed from on to off. Any idea why this is happening?

gilesco wrote: The mount should be attempting to track

Hi gilesco, My mount is HEQ5, and to use it with EKOS, you need to disable its own tracking and use PC passthrough mode and EKS will have full control on the whole mount. Today i found that the EKOS tracking was turned off after the 1st image and the subsequent frames was as the one I posted earlier.

Any idea why?

I think I know what is happening but I cannot explain it. I found that the log is saying that the Telescope altitude reached 0 limits and it stopped moving. Actually it was 42 degrees... Attached a screenshot and the full debug log.
PS: this happened even when I disable the Alt limits. Is this is an EKOS bug??

Just taking a couple "shots in the dark."

1) Make sure the clock is correct on your Raspberry Pi, and that your Lat/Lon is correct in your Indi mount tab (see Site Management) and while you're at it, the KStars startup wizard.

2) If that doesn't fix it, you might try the procedure in this link:
stellarmate.com/support/faq/mounts.html?view=faq&faqid=33

Also there are limits set in the hand controller of the mount. Check those as well.

I would recommend you buy a EQDir cable. With that you can connect your mount directly to the raspberry pi without the need for the hand controller. Then you need to use the EQMOD driver instead as well. I have been using that with my HEQ5 mount for well over three years now without any issues whatsoever and it is MUCH more stable than the connection via the hand controller.


Clear skies, Wouter

hy wrote: Just taking a couple "shots in the dark."

1) Make sure the clock is correct on your Raspberry Pi, and that your Lat/Lon is correct in your Indi mount tab (see Site Management) and while you're at it, the KStars startup wizard.

2) If that doesn't fix it, you might try the procedure in this link:
stellarmate.com/support/faq/mounts.html?view=faq&faqid=33

Thank you hy. The problem was in the indi options. I chose GPS update all devices, and it didn't maybe because it didn't get a good lock, but as soon as I changed to kstars update all devices, it did update the mount

wvreeven wrote: I would recommend you buy a EQDir cable

Hi Wouter,

Thank you for your advice. I already ordered the EQDir cable, but as I still need the hand controller for polar alignment (have no access to Polaris), so I plan to start only the mount, finish my polar alignment, turn it off, and connect the direct cable and start using it directly through KStars.