My PHD2 Autoguiding Tips

[@StuffyToaster]

Finally! A serious explanation of what these parameters do and how they affect performance. I was getting tired of seeing so many videos of people just reading the tool tips as if they understood what was going on. Thank you.

[@tombock336]

Man oh man, this is timely for me, Bray. Been battling my guiding over the last month or so, and this will really help me triage!! 🙏 Keep up the awesome content!

[@figzastro-photography]

You're on a roll, my brother, lol. Great video.

[@astrofalls]

Thanks man! I am grinding

[@bengterlandsson7921]

Did you mention that one needs to recalibrate if your change the setup. Like changing to a lighter or heavier camera and also if like me you need to attach and de attach the scope and Mount to move the setup. Great walk through off PHD2 🎉 Keep up the great work.

[@giuseppecanuzzi4688]

Very instructive! I m a beginner and this is gold, I 'll try to apply because my first experience has been a disaster

[@scottbadger4107]

Great video and especially appreciated the final advice!..... I had a previous munt that was tough to guide, and it was early on in my AP experience, so graph fixation became a thing.....more than once it was the guide star disappearing that finally caused me to look up and see that the sky had clouded over..... A new mount helped pull me back from the edge, and now I figure if my guided 5min subs have similar fwhm's to the auto-focus result, then I'm good (right?). Doesn't take the greatest guiding in my seeing limited conditions.....

[@TANTALUM55]

Do you ever use the 'Auto' exposure setting vs manually setting the exposure time?

[@FrancoGrimoldi]

What an amazing video, THANKS!!

[@NeilCorke]

Very interesting. Does connecting the rotator in the PHD2 configuration save re-calibrating when the camera rotates?

[@astrofalls]

Yes exactly, it transforms the calibration data angle along with the rotator position so recalibration doesn’t need to be repeated

[@AZJohnnnyC]

Thanks for all the insightful info! When it comes autoguiding your MyT mount, do you keep PEC enabled when using PHD2?

[@astrofalls]

Yep PEC is always enabled for me on the MyT!

[@DavesAstrophotography]

Thanks for this Bray - I guess when I go home I'll be doing a lot of checks on my obo mount, I have seen a drop in performance over the last month, and I know stiction is a contributing factor.

[@abrahamshadbeh7223]

Excellent video, easy to understand. You didn't touch on guiding in one direction too much and using low pass 2 in dec vs the hysteresis. I think phd2 says that if you use dec guiding in one direction due to extreme backlash to use low pass 2. I dont know what that means even other than I had to use it in my Tak NJP. And when I mean using one direction I mean guiding only south or north rather than setting it to auto. This also means you have to click "dither RA only" . If you dither that is.

[@seansmith908]

Any particular tips you have for the Paramount? Do you run the same algorithms as you would other mounts? I’m running an MX+ and just curious what you’re doing on the MyT. Great videos my friend. I really enjoy your channel. Clear skies!

[@astrofalls]

Make sure you’ve done a PEC model in TSX, other than that try to keep the aggression low, it shouldn’t need much help to guide well. The same default algos will be perfect

[@Miguel_Noppe]

Very well explained !

[@johnmacdougall4545]

Nice video. Very informative...Thanks.

[@andreguimaraes96]

Awesome video. Thank you. But I’m still lost about the graph. I use Asiair and if you could do a video explaining in detail the graph I would appreciate 🖖🏼

[@DS-iu9ut]

Good informative video, but what is going on when the Ra and Dec are fine, but after a dither the dec pulls away a little then guides fine, but after the next dither it pulls a little further away and guides fine. Each dither a little further away each time.

[@brod5352]

I'd love to see your recommendations for working with an OAG. Especially when the star is not round. Which seems to be all the time for me. I get ok guiding, but I think I can do better. Unless you have already covered the subject. Just let me know if you have. ;o)

[@astrofalls]

For bad star shapes on an OAG I’d double check your back focus is good, and make sure your prism is as close to the sensor as it can be without casting a shadow. This way you’ll get as round of stars as you can, but the shape is not super critical. As long as you can still get enough guide stars to show with good SNR the shape is less relevant

[@abrahamshadbeh7223]

@@astrofalls True, mine were not super sharp in the OAP and I get perfectly round stars in the main scope.

[@nicholaspetersen1629]

This was golden technical knowledge here, much experience clearly stands behind it, thanks for sharing @figzastro!

[@oq17]

Hello - excellent video . Thank you Do you know how I could use phd2 to evaluate my mounts tracking performance ( not while guiding) The mount is a home made , single Ra stepper motor driven - with no ability to talk to a camera or phd2 I basically want to mount my guide camera on this mount - and let phd2 tell me what the tracking errors are . I do not have the ability to run a calibration routine , as ph2 cannot talk to or control this mount .

[@dreamisreallygood6276]

May I ask about something else, what is the name of the piece that balance the third axis(to put it in the shaft) ? (usually for CEM MOUNTs)

[@deepskytrekkin9600]

Great video. Thanks! Concerning RMS errors, (Total, RA & Dec) I am sure you are aware that this is actually a right triangle with the hypotenuse being Total RMS. The side adjacent and side opposite represent the DEC and RA. If the DEC and RA are unequal then the stars will be egg shaped. But if they are equal (or at least close to equal) then the stars will be round. OK fine. I have searched and searched trying to find the adjustments (in PHD2) that will help to achieve this without any luck. I have come close adjusting the RA minmo and the DEC minmo but the results are far from stable. Any thoughts on this? Anyone?

[@koppervik1]

Hi Bray, excellente walkthrough of recommendations and pitfalls! Last season I had my NEQ6 belt modified. After a couple of nights out I had the best guiding so far, and well within my image scale of 3.2. However, I do fall victim of staring at the graph... There seems to be a knife's edge between backlash and binding in my dec axis. When running guide assistant in phd2, the measure is backlash, but if you in fact have binding, it will show up as backlash in the graph as in both cases, the cause is a lack of movement. To make it worse, the backlash, or binding, is not evenly 'distributed' around the 360 degrees of the axis. Right now I have tried to adjust the backlash so I do feel a small backlash in one place when moving the dec with my hands, but unable to feel backlash in other places around the axis. My last two sessions had dec curves 'all over the place', on the very limit of my image scale, even after recalibration and running guide assistant. Balance was spot on in dec, so I am running out of ideas... Do you know how to spot the difference in backlash and binding? When slewing, there is no sound to indicate binding. Thanks! And you have some amazing pictures on astrobin! 😃👌🏻 Cheers from 60 deg north in Norway.

[@cemoguz2786]

I am gonna belive guiding assistant as much as posible. Maybe after I get bad guiding then I will interfere. I find that whenever I do my part too much things gets worse.

[@velaknap]

if you are talking about the PHD2 screen, graph, parameters , I don't need to see your face,, just leave the PHD2 window on the screen, looking at you is no help at all.