I think most of these problems have been eliminated through firmware and driver updates. You’ll learn to religiously home the mount after boot, or connection to software so that the mount knows it’s starting point. After that it will goto pretty good. A single plate solve using the align/sync will get you centered on an object. Really most default settings, even for guiding will be pretty straight forward. You will want to use .5 second guide exposures so the mount can correct quickly for the large periodic error that it has. Anything slower than .5 seconds and it can’t correct fast enough to keep up with the error rate, and you’ll drift off target and back again over a full cycle of the strain wave gear.

PHD2 can also be used with KStars/EKOS, and a full run of the strain wave gear using guiding assistant (4 minutes 20 seconds) will give you good settings to use for the mount. Ignore any backlash recommendation. Then the only other thing worth looking into is just how good you can get polar alignment.

Last, make sure you have the latest firmware.

Read More...