Wizard Nebula (HA Data)

[Guest StevenWhatley]

Well last night was a mixed night for me, I finally managed to solve a few bugs in the system and got a little closer to what I want from my images..

 

I'm still having issues guiding, my line looks reasonably ok in PHD but clearly its drifting over 500s, I have balanced the rig actually spent quite a lot of time on it last night and it feels well balanced so I am wondering if I am having issues with gear slack or something, I know Red Dwarf mentioned that you can shift the weight in a direction so to put more weight on the gear to help with this but what end do I need to move???

 

Do you think upgrading my finder guider from the Standard 50mm finder I'm using will help??

 

Any how last night I set upon the Wizard Nebula as it seemed in a location that PHD was happy to co-operate with me..

 

I messed about a lot this exposures so managed a 2x900s 6x600s using the HA Filter but lost about another 45 minutes of data due to the Starlight Program not auto saving as it should  

 

I think I will have to stick with the GP Cam/ PHD for the time being as I just couldn't get the SXV guide cam and their overly complicated system to play ball!!

 

Not amazing by any stretch but a step in the right direction, this CCD game is a whole other learning curve !!

 

WizNeb by Steven Whatley, on Flickr

 

 

[red dwalf]

Drives you mad doesn't it L.O.L

Guide scope should not make any difference with your set up, so you should be fine with it.

A few things you could try, what version of PhD are you using ? Highly recommend you go for version 2, Google PhD 2 snapshots for the latest version and new camera driver updates, helped me with my asi camera.

Make sure everything is tight, focuser, guide scope, imaging scope and so on, flexture is a pain to lock down.

Move the mount weight so that there is just a little bit more weight on the weight side if that makes sense, if you totally balance the mount it can rock on the gears.

In eqmod, expand the eqmod panel and at the top right hand side you'll see the ra and Dec settings, make sure there both ticked and set then on 0.5 to start with to see how you get on, also click on programs, eqmod, setup eqmod, this is where you select the comm port and so on, again on the top right you'll see a few options, make sure pulse guiding is ticked and its not set for st4 guiding.

Few things to start with, after that you need to start looking at PhD settings and you can also see what's happening in eqmod guide graph.