Multi Star Guiding in PHD2!

[@jean-marclemoine9636]

Hi Cuiv. Nice video. I am using multistars guiding and it’s much better. To select a star you do not need to go to the Tools menu. Just click on the star icon at the bottom of PDH2. Have a nice day and clear skies. JM

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Oh, the big, obvious star icon I hadn't noticed haha! Oh man, thanks!

[@peterkudzinowski1274]

Hi Cuiv. Been away from Astrophotography for several years now but getting back to it now. I’m finding you r videos most informative as things seem to have changed quite a bit. Keep up the good work.

[@dancimbora953]

Cuiv I really appreciate you sharing your expertise through your videos. Absolutely awesome! Thank you thank you thank you.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Oh wow Dan, it is my pleasure, and thank you so much for your support!

[@richardxiong6926]

This is a MAJOR feature update in PHD2, Glad you are back with new videos!

[@JamesPetruzzi_MyHawaiianImages]

I also jumped for joy when I heard about this. Gave it a try on a nice night last week and WOW. I'd link you to the result but I don't want to spam your comments. Thanks for the vid, and reminding me to refresh my dark library. :)

[@Paul-fi7vv]

That's huge! I've been waiting for this forever!

[@VisibledarkAstro]

I've been using the development version with multi-star guiding. This was a nice addition to PHD2. Congrats on 7K subs to! Well done.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Thanks Shawn! You're pretty much there too! I hope your PI workshop online course is working well for you!

[@nickambrose8606]

Thank you for triggering me to check my PHD2 settings. I had trouble getting focus when I started out and left it on 4s loops. Your video triggered me to try again (also with multi-star). On my SkyGuider, I usually get around 1.75-2.00 RMS in the RA axis. I went back to 1 second loops last night and was able to guide. It's only one data point, but I guided at 0.84RMS for 5.5 hours which is a huge improvement! Thank you

[@paulwhitton957]

Hi Cuiv There are people out there who, through sharing their knowledge, make such a difference to others. Your tip regarding the changes in phd2 with multiple star guiding has made such a difference to my astrophotography hobby. I spent 3 hours imaging IC10 and my guiding was the best I’ve ever achieved, with fantastic images as a result. Thank you so much for inspiring me and sharing your knowledge on this channel. Keep up the good work. Best regards, Paul

[@terrypowell8900]

After watching this video I downloaded the multi star version of PHD2 and configured it for my set up. My mount has always tracked pretty well with a total of between .60 and .90. After switching to the multiple star tracking the tracking errors are now between .45 and .70. The mount is almost 9 years old with no hardware updates, and I use no special tools to polar align. I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your information and knowledge.

[@seralyncampbell4731]

I'd heard talk about this, but it's nice to see it in action. Thanks for showing us!

[@vk2np]

Hi Cuiv, Tried it the other clear night (rare) with less than great Polar Alignment that Tree ! Works a treat greatly improved guiding with the QHY Miniguidescope on Tak76DS 570mm scope.

[@yosmith1]

Thanks, I didn't know that dev3 was out. I started using dev2 recently and have seen a substantial improvement in my guiding. Glad to see you're still providing content.

[@colinmaher778]

Hi Cuiv, I tried this last night from Ireland on my CGE classic mount(coverted to OnStep). I was imaging the Elephant trunk Nebula. I started out with mormal guiding for first 2 hours & then switched to multi star. I instantly saw an improvement from .8rms down to .55 & as low as .39! Thanks for the heads up. Excellent channel👍

[@felipemacauliffe1528]

Thank you so much for the detailed report on multi-star guiding ... great job and I will try it out right away. Cheers from Chile.

[@Mistr_A]

Most useful video and explanation without all the rambling monologue like some American videos thanks Cuiv

[@davidaylsworth8964]

I’ve been using the multi-star development version for a few months now without any problems. At this point I’ve used three different dev releases and my guiding has been improved. Installation was a breeze and it retained my guiding profile with the dark library for my SSAG camera. I would recommend PhD2 multi-star without reservation.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Yeah, it's really just a huge enhancement

[@M31glow]

Excellent tips on how to use multi-star guiding.

[@prnzssLuna]

This looks insanely useful. thanks for showing this, though I'll probably wait for the next stable release

[@AstroPhotos]

Wow this is brilliant. I just reinstalled PHD2 and recalibrated everything a week ago as well lol. Looks like I'll be installing and recalibrating everything again, but wow this will be worth it! Thanks for the vid Cuiv.

[@cucubits]

I've been playing with multi star guiding for about a month now, and even with the tiny Skyguider Pro tracker mount it makes a very noticeable improvement.

[@magicker8052]

lol that was going to be my question.. thanks will give it a go

[@Astrogator1]

Good news!!! Thanks for being the one to tell us about this.

[@stanmacdonald1073]

It is about time! This and muti-star autofocus should significantly improve amateur astrophotography.

[@terrypowell8900]

Glad to see another video form you. Your videos have so much usable information and your delivery is spot on. Please keep them coming.

[@normanhey8016]

Thanks, Cuiv! I have been trying MultiStar guiding with my CGEM and have been very impressed with the improvement in RMS reported values. Normally around 1.2-1.4, with MultiStar Guiding (OK, and unidirectional dec corrections to deal with the horrible dec backlash, and finally getting Celestron's PECTOOL to develop and apply a decent PEC curve), I am now down in the 0.8-0.9 range and my images show nice small stars. I haven't tried to break down how much improvement comes from which one or done a serious image analysis yet, because I haven't had much clear sky time here, but using all three changes simultaneously, things "look" better! Certainly it is more reassuring to look at my guiding graph and see it much smoother with fewer corrections. I can only hope that it really will translate into better images going forward. Thanks for the great explanation of how it works. When you understand how something works, it also helps make it much easier to see when it isn't doing what it should. Keep up the great work!

[@seansmith908]

Can’t wait to give this a shot tonight! Thanks Cuiv!

[@seansmith908]

I live SE Louisiana, USA. We basically have 100% humidity every evening. Multistar guiding has definitely stabilized my guiding performance. I'm seeing better numbers but also faster settling times between dithers. Awesome! Thanks Cuiv!

[@enriqueboeneker]

Cuiv! Thanks so much for sharing! I live in Mexico City, use APT instead of NINA, and I will definitely try the multi star tracking. I’ll let you know as soon as I have clear skies down here.

[@TechnoBillyD]

Thanks for this info Cuiv. I used it the other day while testing some gear and the guiding results are so much better. It was quite windy, but even though I could see the single selected star bouncing around, it was hardly making any adjustments to the mount due to fact that the average of the stars cancels out that randomness. It definitely reduces chasing during bad seeing. I used some 10 minute exposures for testing and had round stars .. yay!

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Awesome!

[@astrojw1039]

Hello Cuiv, so I tested out the multi-star guiding the other night. I found on longer exposures it isn't overly effective, in fact while the guiding is consistent, you don't see the improvement until you are using 1-2 sec exposures in PHD2. I did turn it off and on, and I am glad you did this comparison. I found it helps with DEC A LOT, with RA, not as much but RA typically is fairly decent. I did notice my oscillation in PHD2 with RA dropped quite a bit, so that is good. One thing however, I use a OAG. My scope is the celestron 1100HD, I was only able to get it to track one other star besides the guide star using that OAG. I tried longer exposures, I tried a few things such as increasing the sampling, etc. However even with that one extra star, it did help. I did compare, and I saw a difference, but not a huge difference. But I also typically get .30-.45 rms. What did happen however was stability, which likely is due to the averaging of seeing conditions as that always seemed to play a big part. If I could only use a guide scope with the SCT, without the fear of flexure etc, id get more stars etc. I know there is a way around that, but who wants to run more stuff?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Nah, no real way around that... OAG is the only way for you... Good luck!

[@martrich1098]

Greetings from Shanghai! I'm very jealous of your massive open balcony. Setting up on my apartment balcony is killing me (I like punishment). So I'm building a truly portable rig. Love your videos

[@astrodysseus]

If I could give a mega thumb up I would ;) This feature is a game changer and as mentioned in another post, we have seen incredible improvements with harmonic drive mounts such as the RST-135, and therefore most probably for your old crux 140 :)

[@setnes]

OMG! This is going to be awesome! I am in the process of cobbling together a longer focal length rig. Better guiding has been on my mind. I might hold off on ordering the off-axis guider until I try this.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

It won't avoid flexture though... but it's worth a shot!

[@setnes]

I wonder how well multi-star guiding works on long focal length (narrow fields) compared to shorter focal lengths. I am guessing the seeing conditions might be better averaged across wider fields than narrow fields. That's just a hunch though.

[@DavidSomersHarris]

This feature seems awesome - I can see how it can make accurate tracking even more affordable!

[@yangyunbo1]

yea,i tried the multi stars guiding last night，it helps me a lot！！my main camera is about 1"/pix and the new guiding could help me get pretty round star.and i just use pool EQ mount.

[@timliscum2861]

Great vid Quiv.. If you change your sampling from 3 seconds to 1 second.. I think you need to change your Scope Mx RA and Dec setting from 2500 ms to something less than 1 second

[@tommy12345abc]

that multi star guiding looks super super interesting; since I don't have much imaging opportunities here I don't want to risk blowing up during the night so I'll wait for a stable version but I cannot wait for this to go mainstream... should be a game changer

[@karllewis735]

Thank you for this bit of information. That's quite useful. Have they implemented a "get rid of all the stinking clouds" option, yet? That's the update I'm really needing just now.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Not that I know of :D

[@Westlake]

Good video Cuiv! Appreciate the before and after using a single star vs multi star guiding. Hope all is good!

[@markblundell4382]

Nice and useful video, cheers 🍻. All I need now is clear sky and a kick up the arse to get back out there imaging.

[@1struve]

A very instructive video. I liked it, thank you. I found that new function of the new PHD very interesting, I have to try it!

[@doco6186]

Very cool! Thanks for the insight.

[@overhang88]

You dont seem too active on youtube or instagram lately. I hope all is well with you. You make great videos and it is a pleasure to learn from such a passionate and light hearted astrophotographer.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I've been a bit in a slump after my injury, but getting back into it!

[@Ken_James_SV]

Excellent!!! Tomorrow I will go up to my observatory and download it to my Observatory computer. Thanks heaps Cuiv 👍

[@cristophervanegas9483]

I really love your videos master, I'm just starting in this marvelous hobby and it would be incredible what kind of pictures a professional like you could take with just a simple 8 in reflector and your smartphone, a video of this kind from you would open so much doors for people who like this hobby but do not have all the gear for astrophotography, I'm just saying haha thank you so much for your vides. Clear skys for all people !

[@NebuloCity]

Fantastic, Cuiv! Really curious to see this kind of guiding proliferated across multiple platforms one day , ZWO ASIAIR Pro included :)

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Yep - just when I think I want to get an ASIAir Pro because it now has autofocus, this comes up. Computers also have the versatility that integrated solutions don't...

[@alexgti9345]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek Hey Yannick, you should indeed give the Asiair pro a try, even if the guiding functions are not as rich as they are on a computer. You can definitely have a good guiding with this little red box and as lazy geek myself, I can guarantee the overall feeling about it is reaaaaaally good! AF function works like a charm for me and is surprisingly accurate too. I wish I could watch some videos of yours talking about this integrated solution ;-) Clear skies from Corsica!

[@NebuloCity]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek so true. Pros and cons for everything. Lol. But it’s all worth the effort!

[@AmyAstro]

Thank you, Excellent tutorial. I will try it this weekend.

[@salomon1639]

great to see you. thanks for the great video. you always come up with useful info. thanks to you I also used GS server on portable mount and it worked very well. Again, thanks and stay safe

[@JuanLopez-jk9mu]

Works a treat! ty!

[@gavin5326]

This is super interesting, considering clear night's are always very humid here in Ireland. I love your channel so much! I learned so much from it!

[@NeilW210]

Thanks Cuiv, another great vid. This could be a game changer.

[@ronkramer3476]

I saw no change in multistar... I watched your video and through - hmmmmm not what I hear... so I went from 3 sec to 1 sec with multi-star and HOLY COW! I went from 1.3 average to about .5 average. THANK YOU! and it does work. Normally 1 sec to 3 sec makes no difference.

[@ronkramer3476]

I use to average out seeing at 3 sec. Now it's 1 sec and about 2/3rds better and that was during last nights VERY VERY BAD SEEING TESTS with clouds coming in.

[@nicksastrophotography330]

I tried it using my guidescope at FL 206mm and my C8 at FL 2000mm and I found it was making to many corrections and there the image got worse than guiding with my OAG at 4 seconds. I might have to try it again, but for now I switched back to my OAG and at F10 I need longer exposures, but getting sharper results. Anyway, good to see you back. 👍

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

C8 would have mirror shift, and possibly some flexture. So yes, OAG will win every time, because there the scope and guidescope itself are not physically in sync. It's likely not related to multiple star tracking...

[@nicksastrophotography330]

Yeah, I guess you're right. I'll try it out on my newt sometime.

[@FedericoCPP]

This is a great feature. Did not realize that seeing conditions had this much of an adverse effect to guiding performance... Thanks a lot Cuiv! Wonder what kind of guiding performance one can get with the AZ-GTi

[@JohnMcGFrance]

Sounds great. Think I’ll risk it. No clear nights forecast for at least a week though. Thanks for the tip off.

[@mehdiabed6942]

Hey you are back ! Just to mention that multistars will maybe allow to use high frequency guidind that will help to improve fwhm as metaguide is claiming

[@thibaultrouillee2513]

Super vidéo comme d'habitude ! Bravo !

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Merci!

[@geert5811]

Hello Cuiv, as usual very helpful info; let's hope that by the time we have a clear night here around this windy humid hole by the North Sea, this version made it to the stable release. g.

[@dalep2842]

This is great news, thank you for sharing! I look forward to trying this!

[@DavesAstrophotography]

Thanks Cuiv, something else for me to try!

[@spookydonkey2195]

Amazing! I’m so excited to try this out. Thanks!

[@cheloniachris]

Hey Cuiv, nice vid, again! If you have experience with GS Server and EQ6-R, why not share it with a new video? I am about to switch, but still have some open questions regarding limits and guiding params.

[@alexchong1979]

Awesome! i wish ASIAIR also add this feature !

[@richardpalfreyman9045]

Cuiv, thanks for another informative video. Just wondering if you're using GSS's PPEC with your mount? Thanks.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I wasn't then, but I have been recently - I don't see a huge difference, but it's there.

[@richardpalfreyman9045]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek Thanks!

[@MrThebigcheese123]

This software looks like it is operating under similar algorithms to the object tracking software used for projection mapping and CCTV face tracking, possibly? If so, I like the implementation for star tracking in this case.

[@sneakerset]

Cool beans. I'm learning a lot in this pleasant activity, and your videos are a big help.

[@mrjeje]

Thanks for the great tip ! It's a big big good news ! 🥳🥳🥳🥳

[@astroshed]

I am not sure this makes total sense - the original PHD2 graph (@6:30) shows it is cancelling a significant consistent drift on DEC and RA. Most of the corrections on both axis are "down". With multistar guiding (@9.00), the correction polarity and magnitude have changed dramatically, with the RA corrections mostly "up" and the declination behaving itself and not requiring significant correction at all. This is rather strange and I think something else has changed to alter the characteristics of the underlying mount tracking behavior. This is not because of changing to multistar guiding . I think PHD2 is great and use it all the time but I would suggest, for a fair comparison, to only change the multistar option, rather than exposure time and so on. If I ever see a clear sky, I will be doing this for myself sometime. [update] Miracle of miracles I had a clear evening. Tried back to back single and multi star guiding. In my case, the slightest of differences. (Paramount MX, 650mm FL, QHY178 guider on OAG). RMS error was 0.47" with single star and 0.45" with multistar. Exposure was 3 seconds. This is not too surprising, at my imaging scale (0.76"/pix) and with seeing noise, all that multi-star guiding can do is to improve the centroid determination. The seeing effect is pretty consistent across the frame (you can confirm by doing very short exposures and comparing star shapes) and so, assuming PHD2 has 0.2 pixel accuracy, that is equivalent to 0.15". With seeing noise about 1.5-2", even if it made the centroid accuracy dead accurate, one is not going to notice the effect. Other setups will differ.

[@Osti67]

Awesome tip.... gonna be hard to make good use of this feature with OAG but hey risking the space time continuum for 0.6 arc second guiding? Count me in ^^

[@Texb007]

Ohh this is nice I will try it next time!

[@LogansChristmasLights]

Thanks for doing the vid. Definitely going to give this a go.

[@astrozeugs]

Thank you. I will test it. :-)

[@VaguelyAmused]

5:09 onwards for a bit, did you capture a satellite moving right to left just below M42? :) Looking forward to trying this feature out, been a month of cloudy skies here so far.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Quite possible! There's a lot of the little critters out there :-)

[@TomBridle]

Excellent video

[@damiengalanaud3817]

Super info, merci beaucoup, je suis sûr que ça va bien aider vu comme je bataille pour garder l'étoile guide cet hiver froid et humide ! Just a short question: since it's a development version and it may run into some bugs, can you have both the dev and the stable versions of PHD2 installed in your computer ? Since, like you, I live in a city with a huge amount of light pollution (Paris) and must travel nearly one hour for each astrophoto session, I would not like to loose a night of imaging if the dev version of PHD2 eventually does not work with my setup Damien

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I'm actually not sure... I think it's possible if you install to different folders? But I haven't tried. The dev version of PHD2 hasn't crashed on me yet though.

[@luboinchina3013]

Great news😊

[@danjensen9425]

I did like the video . I sent my brand new cgemll into deep sky products for the hypertune work just to get the most I could out of that mount . I will be learning Nina when it gets back and I was wondering if you have the ability to goto a target with out the hand control by using the programs within Nina and add ones will you be side stepping the mount goto and now your programs are telling it where to go possibly being more accurate than the mount . I sent the first cgemll back and they sent a new one to me . The first was spot on after star alignment but the second was not as good . They just aren’t very good for autoguiding that’s why the hyper tune work .

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

That's the point of software like NINA! Controlling the mount from the computer, slewing, centering (via platesolving), etc. is what this is used for.

[@grahamwhite75a]

Hi Cuiv is this increased accuracy really a benefit. With most astrophotography having a pixel resolution between 0.8” and 2.0” will reducing guid error to 0.6” have much noticeable error? The one potential benefit I could see from this is enabling the mount to guide through periods when clouds are passing because the probability of a cloud covering all guide stars is reduced?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

It's not just the RMS, it's also the number of spikes in guiding, which RMS doesn't really tell you about, but which affect the final image. So lower RMS is the most visible benefit during the session, but I do believe it translates into better pictures, even at twice less per pixel resolution than RMS for instance. And it's free, no drawback to it!

[@cryptojihadi265]

Thanks for this video. HUGE difference. Here is my issue. The only way I can get it to do multiple stars is to have it autopick the alignment star. The problem I have with that is it always picks a star so dim, it constantly looses track of it. Get the Star Mass Loss error. Is there a way to do multiple stars with manual pick or how do I force the program to pick a brighter star?

[@AstroQuest1]

Thanks for posting Cuiv. I will try it, maybe tonight. One additional question, I purchased a new scope (8" Edge) and will be using an OAG, if I lower the exposure time won't it be harder to detect stars? No hurry on the answer the scope is on backorder so who knows when I will get it. Cheers Kurt

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Hey Kurt!! Yes you are absolutely right - it's likely that with an OAG the multi-star feature won't be usable since you'll have fewer stars in the first place, and high gain (so potentially high noise).... good luck!

[@AstroQuest1]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek Used it last night and it worked great, best guiding I have had with the Sirius mount and my latest equipment setup.

[@benursinus]

Thats a brilliant tip, thanks! I've really been struggling with guiding in the winter months. Quick question, how often should I calibrate the guiding? Im only s few months into imaging and I've not recalibrated since the first time! Pretty much the only reason I've got as far as I have are due to your videos so massive thanks from me :)

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Mmmh, I assume you have a permanent setup (otherwise it is better to recalibrate each time). I personally recalibrate once a month or so, and prior to that fine tune my polar alignment, which sometimes shifts a bit with strong wings and earthquakes...

[@benursinus]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek unfortunately I set up each time so I think I'll do it much more often now. Thanks for helping again :)

[@AstroPixUK]

Great video again. I tried this but my guiding was worse it’s been. Only put it down to bad viewing.

[@steorra314]

Definetly trying this out!! I'm cruious how often do you do a dark libary?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

For my guiding camera, around once a month, since it's not cooled!

[@steorra314]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek oh my its time i did another :)

[@AstroRef68]

Hi excellent tutorial I don’t see pulses on phd2 and stopes tracking Any idea

[@Pletharoe]

This is awesome. How stable has the version been for you so far??

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

So far I've had no issues with it. But I'm a single data point!

[@bobstx]

What do you think about even shorter exposures now?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I think even 0.5s exposures would work well, and that allows to play with guide speed even more.

[@toddnoseworthy1447]

Thanks Again!!

[@christianvulpescu1398]

Very interesting and informative video. Do you callibrate with one star or with multiple stars?

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

I calibrated with multiple stars, because why not? :)

[@christianvulpescu1398]

@@CuivTheLazyGeek Right! Why not? 😄👍 So I will try it, too. Thank you so much for the quick answer. 😘

[@clungebucket23]

Makes perfect sense to me, i'll take the risk

[@davecurtis8833]

Cuiv, do you think this feature would work as well on narrow field imaging - say 2000mm compared to wide field - say 200mm.

[@CuivTheLazyGeek]

Well it would work... but it can't get rid of flexture or mirror shift, which will likely be an issue at 2000mm. So you might get excellent guiding, but trailing stars in your images - and OAG would then be needed.

[@real_astrotard]

Wow!

[@Robert08010]

"... and it might break the space-time continuum." Well, there's no time like the space time continuum. Lets see what happens!!

[@2010pinmaster]

Is there a way for NINA to use multi star guiding?

[@ChrisTurchin]

It goes best with a NINA nightly 😉

[@JVRost]

It's strange that this function is not reflected in my menu, although I looked without connected equipment, okay, I'll go under the Odessa sky

[@TylerMillhouse]

When using NINA, PhD2 multi-star guiding stops every time I dither. Also, PhD2 only dithers in RA ("RA only" is NOT checked in either PhD or NINA). Anybody have any clue how to fix this?

[@zelodec]

If only the clouds would go away to test this

[@timliscum2861]

Wouldn't work for me... with no changes except the "upgrade" I couldn't see any stars..... Yes Cuiv warned me...

[@nxu5107]

Great stuff Cuiv. Thanks first and foremost. BTW are you becoming less lazy now? I can see you have combed your hair on this video. What star was guiding you to do that? ;-)

[@rashie]

👍👍

[@nxu5107]

BTW also can you do dummy's guide with this I mean a dummy much lower than the PHD2 guys ever thought could exist in our universe? Yes there are such beings. one lives in UK.