Testing again last night until clouds shut me down. In PHD I'm really good at tweaking settings but I have no blue in the internal guide module. So - the RA meanders off. (FIRST I'd like it to correct before it gets this far off. - isn't that done with the minimum pulse setting?

Jasem said I should keep it at least at 100. (but my mount wants min move setting in PHD to be really low) If I reduce that from 100 (default) to say 50 will it kick sooner? I'm assuming that's the move... required to get the correction to kick in? (min error to correct?)

I ask because below you can see the RA went off track TO FAR before correction was applied. And then the level of correction was to much and kicked the RA in the opposite direction just as far off! I adjust PHD to kick to the center line. What settings do I use to:

1. minium error for correction to be applied?

2. Agressiveness or (amount of correction kick back to center line-'0'.

Guiding works, but POORLY. I'd like to fine tune this. Also - do you think there is more error/lag in running internal guider on the PI and using VMS or team viewer? That would eliminate the trip to my desktop and the correction then sent back to the PI which might make corrections quicker?
Would guiding be better if I ran Kstars on a linux PC in the dome directly connected to the mount? )team viewer from in the house)?
I guess what I'm asking is - would eliminating the data trip to and from the desktop in the house correct the mount better and quicker? Is the driver on the pi running the guiding module or is Ekos in the house doing the observation and correction?

It shows corrections aren't applied until the error is +/- 2 arc sec! TO MUCH. I want to correct at .5 ac sec error. And increase from there if seeing is causing oscillations. (like I do with PHD).
My DEC was doing the same. That much error makes me feel I should go check my alignment. I may have bumped something swapping from the 6" apo to the RASA install.

ALSO notice my star... I tried other EFFECTS to clarify it and one was high contrast... the star would vanish often so I turned it off. But as you can see - the filter is still applied even though you can see I have no effect applied.

!!! bug?

As you are using 1x guiding rate, 100ms sounds way too much, if I calculate it correctly that would be 1.5 arc seconds, and the 0.5" you are after would be 33ms. So lower the minimum pulse value so that minimum correction is comfortably below pixel scale. Also possibly lower the guide rate to 0.5x, but that depends on the mount, my HEQ5 guides much more smoothly at 0.5x, but yours might like 1x better.

Can you explain how to convert a pulse length into a displacement in arc sec? Is this as simple as “1x guiding rate means guide at the same speed as at which stars move along the sky which is 15 arc sec per sec so a pulse of 100 ms equals 0.1 sec times 15 arc sec per sec equals 1.5 arc sec”?

Exactly, sometimes things are fortunately quite simple

Another thread recommended something like 20ms for minimum pulse width, which is what I am trying.

Testing last night after a good polar alignment with new OAG setup, seeing described as poor, using pulse guiding, and the guiding was awful, could hear the mount slewing around trying to track.

However once again starting guide calibration had caused "Invalid pier side response from device" errors from AstroPhysics Experimental driver which can be found in the kstars log. So cancelled guiding and took 60 second test image unguided which came out with nice round stars. If it remains clear will try again tonight using the ST4 cable instead of pulse guiding.

I have the same mount. With pulse it kicks the mount all over the sky during calibration. Jasem had me try ST4 (which I hate due to cord snag) but it eliminated the huge calibration jumps. (so that last that helps track down where the problem may be).

Recent. (last night) I was playing around somewhere and I saw a MACH1 indi driver I had never seen before? Is this new? outdated? as it didn't mention what GTO box was supported? I'm using experimental as well. But what of this mach1 mount driver?

I was using a OAG on my 6" APO - and pulse made for huge calibration (SLEWS) all across the sky. ST4 was better. But I need to figure out how to tweak controls... as I do in phd. I have min move down around 20 and Jasem said I should keep it at 100. (but I think the AP mount actually likes low min moves). I had it VERY LOW in PHD with excellent results.

The ST4 connection is usable. Nearly full moon, average seeing this evening according to the web site. The guiding calmed down though it goes off from time to time but was generally staying under 1.0 with a small refractor. The attached was with exposure extended to 8 seconds, Control Parameters: minimum guide pulse 20, Proportion reduced from 66 to 33. Probably not optimal but it improved over the defaults.

Not bad, AP says guide the mount at 1.0 rate. So you had that set to 1.0 and then under the target, you changed those settings to .20 min and the rate there was (it recommends 66) but you went 33? I'll try that again. I was set around there but Jasem said not to. However, 8 seconds seems excessive. Did you try 2-3 second exposure too?

I was trying to guide a big refractor with a .64 image sale. I'd need to be under that for a RMS error. You were at .79 I think it read... I just switched to a RASA with a 1/3rd shorter focal length which will reduce my image scale (I THINK it's .84) about now. Before going to INDI PHD2 averaged around .35 and often was as good as .24

I wonder if it's the server/client delay.... since trying external PHD on the PI server resulted in nearly the same as the internal guider. I'm not sure of where the correction is being calculated. (on the pi or on the client). But at 8 second exposure any server/client communications time would be irrelevant it would seem. I'm talking low ms I'd say.

changing to the RASA was done to lower FL, but also to reduce exposure times. Having a guiding glitch during a 10-20 minute exposure was frustrating to say the least. So from F8 and 3nm astrodon filters to F2.2 and high speed baader nb filters - I hope to shoot more but shorter exposures.

Yes I varied from 2 to 10 seconds, 25% to 66% etc without dramatic effect or finding a sweet spot. The incorrect/excessive 8 seconds 33% would track below 0.5 for a while and sometimes exceed 1.0. I did not learn much from the exercise on how the parameters work, but the way it tracks really well, then goes off for a while makes it seem like something external to the software needs attention. Think I will next try and run guiding without issuing any corrections, and see how the scope drifts to get a baseline.

Stay in touch here - since we have similar setup. Where are you? your profile pic weather looks like mine in W. Michigan = ) I'm about to head out and see if I can tweak shutter alignment now that it's off... since I switched scopes to a 11 rasa.

[b}SNAP! only took around 2.5 hours of tweaking to try and learn what teh settings do... but read em and weep![/b]

It's been in the .3's for the past 1/2 hour.