Revealing My PHD2 Guiding Ignorance

[@calimark7448]

Thanks for the vid!

[@AstroVagabond]

You bet!

[@williamhouse5081]

You’ve got it figured out, all of the image scale and low RMS error stuff gets tossed out the window with wide field telescopes. It’s nearly impossible to get the perfect pixel size for a wide field telescope, and RMS errors over 1.0 are fine.

[@AstroVagabond]

Thank you for taking time to view and provide feedback. Much appreciated! 👍

[@IronMan-2024]

Just curious, do you run a calibration at the start of the night? I don’t see any. On the axis of the phd2 viewer the + and - signs will change the scale. How often do you dither? Some sections don’t appear to have any?

[@AstroVagabond]

I do run a calibration on the first night I arrive at a site. Here is a link to the calibration plot I generated on 9/30/2024 which was the first of 3 night at Blue Canyon airport: drive.google.com/file/d/1VF72_fIj7rt_PgPCmaiP7TnsJQIrdIzU/view?usp=sharing I always dither. The way my exposure plan was set up for that target called for 5 minute HA, SII, OIII exposures 50 each, and 1 minute R,G,B 20 exposures each. I take 2 exposures in a row for each filter R, R, G, G, B, B, Ha, Ha, SII, SII, OIII, OIII then a DIther. So that is a dither every 36 minutes. When Target Scheduler knows I've captured all the RGB exposures my plan calls for that just leaves the NB which mean I then dither every 30 minutes. As to some sections not having a dither it might be because Target Scheduler was imaging two targets that night and there may have been a wait period between the first target ending and the second target starting. Also there was a meridian flip somewhere along the night. Thanks for viewing the video and taking a moment to comment. Much appreciated. 👍

[@IronMan-2024]

@@AstroVagabond I have to to break down my rig every time so I have to focus (sometimes), do a PA, and a guider calibration every night. Recently I discovered I was slightly over the weight limit for my AM3 and I was stalling in some severe orientations. I managed to fix my problem with a counterweight and my guiding improved significantly. I used to be just over 1.00 arc sec total rms, but now I’m more in the 0.75 arc sec rms.

[@AstroVagabond]

Glad you found your issue. At the end of the day if our stars look good then I feel we are good but my standards may be different then yours. Now that I sold my EQ6-R Pro yesterday I was thinking about the AM3 to run my RedCat 51 freeing up my AM5 to run my EdgeHD 8. I'll make my decision in the next couple of months.