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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Guiding nightmare

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Replied by wotalota on topic Guiding nightmare

I was having a hard time with guiding last night, took about 1.5 hours to get it going.
The swings were very high, going off scale and needing a restart. This was using settings
untouched from earlier nights when guiding was acceptable. Seeing was average and a nice
clear night better than most here. The last few things changed were:

- Disable dithering, didn't seem to be related but left it disabled
- Reduce pulse
- Algorithm changed from SMART
- Use of subframe (since this was the last thing changed before guiding worked for more than a few minutes)

After these changes the RMS error averaged 0.4 for the remaining 2 hours of time.
I do not know when the FOV became 5.6x5.6 but did not touch it since things were working.
/Tom

TS86Q
General:
Via: Pulse
Subframe yes
Star: Manual select
Box: 32x32
Focal: 464
Aperture: 86
F/D: 5.4
FOV: 84x53 (5.6x5.6)
Guide Rate: x1 (Mach1)
Exposure: 3 seconds
Binning: 2x2

Options Calibration
Pulse: 300
Iterations: 3

Options Guide
Algorithm: SEP
Dither: Disabled

Control Params
Max pulse: 900ms
Min pulse: 30ms
4 years 6 months ago #43645

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Replied by the.cakemaker on topic Guiding nightmare

Same here yesterday... Since i had extreme problems using phd i´d love to use the internal guider.
For some time it worked just fine with my Moravian G2 8300 Color and an ASI 120mm on the OffAxisGuider.

Because i am not very happy with my G" i made the step back to my Canon 5dMarkIII with Astromodification.
There i have to use a finder (ZWO 60280) with the asi, because i do not have a fittin OAG for the ASI.

Guiding was absolutely katastrophic the last 2 nights...

I kept getting misses up to 8+ arcsecs and it was not really usable...

tried different settings for about 3 hours without success. Maybe i´ll have a go with phd tonight...

If only the MGen would be finally supported in KStars, this would solve all my problems...

cheers
Niki
Skywatcher EQ6-R | Lacerta 10" Carbon-Newton | Lacerta MFoc Motorfocus | Moravian G2 8300 Color | Canon EOS 5DMarkIIIa | Lodestar X2 guiding cam | KSTARS 3.4.3. on my outdoor-Laptop with KDE-Neon/Plasma | KSTARS 3.4.3. on Remote-IMac with Catalina | KSTARS 3.4.3 on Remote-Macbook Air with Catalina
4 years 6 months ago #43649

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Replied by Alfred on topic Guiding nightmare

I cannot comment on your calibration problem. But one thing you should definitely do is set your proportional gain to 44.4. Thas assumes your guiding rate is indeed 1.5 as shown in the screenshot.
I suspect this is not correct though since normally the guiding rate should be around 0.5 or 0.3 or something similar.

What you should do is this:
1. find out what the guiding rate of your mount is.
2. enter the guiding rate in the corresponding field in Ekos
3. copy the resulting P: value to both "Porportional gain" fields in the control parameters.

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Last edit: 4 years 6 months ago by Alfred.
4 years 6 months ago #43654
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Replied by Wouter van Reeven on topic Guiding nightmare

In the guide cam image the green square is not centered on a star. Is Select Auto Star selected or do you select a star manually before starting the guiding calibration?


Wouter
4 years 6 months ago #43655

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Replied by the.cakemaker on topic Guiding nightmare

Thats how it looks here. Always running away to the top...

Edit: How neccesary would you say is the orientation of the guidecam as well as the exact alignemnt of guidescope and main scope?

cheers
Niki
Skywatcher EQ6-R | Lacerta 10" Carbon-Newton | Lacerta MFoc Motorfocus | Moravian G2 8300 Color | Canon EOS 5DMarkIIIa | Lodestar X2 guiding cam | KSTARS 3.4.3. on my outdoor-Laptop with KDE-Neon/Plasma | KSTARS 3.4.3. on Remote-IMac with Catalina | KSTARS 3.4.3 on Remote-Macbook Air with Catalina
Last edit: 4 years 6 months ago by the.cakemaker.
4 years 6 months ago #43661
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Replied by Jose Corazon on topic Guiding nightmare


Wouter, when you look closely you see that Auto-Star is selected.

I am not sure what is going on, but I also would like to know the Kstars version that was used in those instances.
Remember how we were trying to solve the guiding variations last year, only to revert back to the default values in the internal guiding module.
I have exclusively used the internal guider for the last 2 years and it has been rock-solid for me.
The "cannot reach guidestar after 21 iteration possible mount or backslash problem" issue was caused by a bug in the ZWO driver back when we were dealing with this some 18 months ago, or so. So if that is back, then the ZWO driver may be at fault again?
My guiding still works great, but I also did not upgrade to the latest Indi version yet.
Please post the version you are using.

Cheers

Jo
4 years 6 months ago #43663

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Replied by Ray Wells on topic Guiding nightmare

I guided last night with an eq6-r and an asi120c-s on a converted finder scope. With the exception of a tight cable at one point, I was able to guide sub 1arcsec 600second exposures all night...and yes i'm stoked by that unusually good night. :)
With my new system I've found my tracking failures are almost always related to cable drag or polar misalignment. Also, I always clear any sync and tuning when I start each night as the mount tends to log erroneous settings from the previous setup if I don't. This could creep into tracking speeds on some mounts. I've found that I have better results by actually forcing the mount to be a bit west weighted(camera/focuser tilted west a bit) then shooting east, to help avoid bouncing on backlash. I tend to run my gains a bit high and I most recently switched my eq6r to 1.00x in settings and guiding.

Hope something here is of help to you.

Clear skies!
Ray
4 years 6 months ago #43664

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Replied by Rob Lancaster on topic Guiding nightmare

It looks like you are using be internal guider correct? Did you try the same thing using phd2 remotely from Ekos?

I am not sure I understand the PS in the original post. PHD2 can be used with Ekos remotely . I worked pretty hard about a year ago to use their api to update Ekos so that it would talk more thoroughly with PHD2 to integrate all the functions that I could into the Ekos interface so that running phd2 remotely would send all the info back and it would act mostly like you are using the internal guider. Is this what you are looking for? Because if so it already does it.

Or are you meaning that you want the internal guider to be updated to work more like phd2?

One thing that should be noted is that if you are imaging with a raspberry pi remotely over the network, the best plan is to run phd2 on the pi and to control it from Ekos on your laptop. It would not be a good plan to try to guide with the Ekos internal guider controlling a guide camera over WiFi on a pi. Phd2 running on the pi is much more responsive due to download times
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4 years 6 months ago #43666

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Replied by Rob Lancaster on topic Guiding nightmare

It looks like you are using be internal guider correct? Did you try the same thing using phd2 remotely from Ekos?

I am not sure I understand the PS in the original post. PHD2 can be used with Ekos remotely . I worked pretty hard about a year ago to use their api to update Ekos so that it would talk more thoroughly with PHD2 to integrate all the functions that I could into the Ekos interface so that running phd2 remotely would send all the info back and it would act mostly like you are using the internal guider. Is this what you are looking for? Because if so it already does it.

Or are you meaning that you want the internal guider to be updated to work more like phd2?

One thing that should be noted is that if you are imaging with a raspberry pi remotely over the network, the best plan is to run phd2 on the pi and to control it from Ekos on your laptop. It would not be a good plan to try to guide with the Ekos internal guider controlling a guide camera over WiFi on a pi. Phd2 running on the pi is much more responsive due to download times
4 years 6 months ago #43667

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Replied by Alfred on topic Guiding nightmare

I am currently guiding with today's nightly build and I do not experience any problems. I started the night with yesterday's nightly and did not experience any guiding problems with this version either.

An ASI 294 for guiding and an ASI 294Pro for imaging are being used. Nightly Ekos running on Kubuntu 19.04.
4 years 6 months ago #43668

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Replied by Charles Wright on topic Guiding nightmare

Hi,

I highly recommend using PHD2 for guiding. I had problems like you are describing for at least a year, up until early July, which is when I switched to PHD2. Since then, guiding has been much much better.

PHD2 is fairly well integrated with EKOS, but it does require that you start it up separately from kstars/EKOS. This has not been a problem for me.

A very useful part of PHD2 is Guiding Assistant. I highly recommend using it for 2x or 3x your worm period before you start guiding.

Anyway, I don't mean to diss the guiding in EKOS, but it seems that implementing a guiding algorithm is a lot harder than it might seem at first. PHD2 has so much good stuff in it, plus excellent documentation. I don't know what the magic is, but I'd give PHD2 a try.

Charles
Ubuntu 18.04 and Raspbian Jessie; INDI 1.7.4
Mounts: CEM-60 chiefly; iEQ45
Cameras: Atik 383L+, QHY5-II-M
Focuser: Moonlite
4 years 6 months ago #43671

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Replied by Jerry Black on topic Guiding nightmare

Hi Rob,

Re "integrate all the functions that I could in Ekos" Are the guide star image and guiding history currently supposed to be displayed in the Setup pane of EKOS when using PHD2? They show up for me only when using internal guiding.

Thanks
4 years 6 months ago #43681

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