HAE69 C EC PHD2 Settings - Forums

Topic starter

Jun 11, 2025

I thought I'd reach out to see if anyone can share their PHD2 settings for this mount. I've had good success using my ASIAIR Pro but I'm in the process of transitioning to a Primaluce Eagle 6 running NINA. It's been a frustrating transition as my guiding is averaging 0.50" with the ASIAIR and I'm struggling to keep it below 1' 00" using PHD2 with NINA. I'm using Sharpcap 2 for my polar alignment and making sure the alignment error is below 1' 00".

I did not check the encoders option on account of the encoder not being absolute like other high end mounts. My current settings are as follows:

RA
Hysteresis 10
Aggressiveness 70
Minimum Move 0.18
Max RA duration 2500

Declination
Lowpass 2
Aggressiveness 90
Minimum Move 0.28
Max Dec duration 2500
Dec guide mode auto

Backlash compensation is not selected as per the PHD2 analysis recommendation.

I've tried 1, 2, 3 and 4 second guide exposures but changing them did not make any difference in my guide error.

Thanks in advance!

Christoph Paulus

Jun 11, 2025

I own an HAE69B EC and my settings are similar. I need to check the exact values on my astro PC but your numbers look very familiar. I'm usually guiding my 1000/200 Newtonian at 3 seconds while for my C9.25 at F10 I'm using 5 seconds. Can't recommend much longer than 5 seconds since the encoder unfortunately is not very good/precise enough. I usually take the Min Move recommended by PHP2. Can you share some pictures of your PHD2 graph?

Otherwise I noticed that the guiding quality heavily relies on seeing. If the seeing is very good I'm around 0.3" while at bad nights it can be above 0.8". At some point I thought something was broken since guiding was bad and it took me a while to realize it's seeing. Often I can see the seeing change during the night.

Helpful Insightful Respectful Engaging

TiffsAndAstro

Jun 11, 2025

Christoph Paulus:
I own an HAE69B EC and my settings are similar. I need to check the exact values on my astro PC but your numbers look very familiar. I'm usually guiding my 1000/200 Newtonian at 3 seconds while for my C9.25 at F10 I'm using 5 seconds. Can't recommend much longer than 5 seconds since the encoder unfortunately is not very good/precise enough. I usually take the Min Move recommended by PHP2. Can you share some pictures of your PHD2 graph?

Otherwise I noticed that the guiding quality heavily relies on seeing. If the seeing is very good I'm around 0.3" while at bad nights it can be above 0.8". At some point I thought something was broken since guiding was bad and it took me a while to realize it's seeing. Often I can see the seeing change during the night.

How much does multi star guiding mitigate seeing?

Ashraf AbuSara

Jun 12, 2025 · Edited: Jun 12, 2025

Bob Rucker:
I thought I'd reach out to see if anyone can share their PHD2 settings for this mount. I've had good success using my ASIAIR Pro but I'm in the process of transitioning to a Primaluce Eagle 6 running NINA. It's been a frustrating transition as my guiding is averaging 0.50" with the ASIAIR and I'm struggling to keep it below 1' 00" using PHD2 with NINA. I'm using Sharpcap 2 for my polar alignment and making sure the alignment error is below 1' 00".

I did not check the encoders option on account of the encoder not being absolute like other high end mounts. My current settings are as follows:

RA
Hysteresis 10
Aggressiveness 70
Minimum Move 0.18
Max RA duration 2500

Declination
Lowpass 2
Aggressiveness 90
Minimum Move 0.28
Max Dec duration 2500
Dec guide mode auto

Backlash compensation is not selected as per the PHD2 analysis recommendation.

I've tried 1, 2, 3 and 4 second guide exposures but changing them did not make any difference in my guide error.

Thanks in advance!

I have the HAE69b EC for nearly a year and a half. Typically it will guide 0.3-0.5" unless the seeing is bad or the wind is strong. I typically leave it at 3 second exposures.

First thing you need to make sure of is that your guide camera focal length is correctly reported in PHD. Its in the second box under "calibration".:

Another thing you might want to consider doing is calibrate your RA encoder. Make sure you are properly homed and no cables would snag during the process because it will rotate east and west on the RA access quite a bit. You will find it under: "Pro Features".

Here are my guiding settings:

Here is a 40 minute stretch from last night which is typically how it looks:

Hope that helps

Helpful

Dave Rust

Jun 12, 2025

Harmonics are engineered differently, of course, and benefit from unusual settings to reduce the impact of larger Periodic Error. Yours is an EC, so it's doing some internal correction its own. If we shorten corrections and make them more often, then they can totally level out the PE sine, leading to more of a .25 to .45 range on a quiet night. This will also mean stars will tend to be perfectly round, as the PE error won't have time to stretch them. Just humor me for a second…

Correction max length: 150/150 (fast, a big difference from 2000)
Correction rate: X0.75 (instead of X0.50)
Guide cam exposure/rate: 1.5sec. (Non-EC harmonic mounts benefit from a faster 0.5sec guide cam exposure rate.)
Agressiveness 25%/25% (adjust to suit after seeing result. My HAE29 benefits from 25% RA/30% DEC in calm air. A click stronger on both in light wind)

I also use this method on an old AM5 and can pretty much match the guide performance of my HAE29EC.

Conventional mounts won't respond to settings like this because they are more massive, have counterweights and moment forces, and therefore can't move as quickly.

I don't know why manufacturers don't include similar guidance with their harmonics…they should. If a graphic artist can figure this out, their mechanical engineers should be able to. ;-)

Helpful Insightful Engaging Supportive

Bob Rucker

Topic starter

Jun 12, 2025

I want to thank everyone who was so generous in sharing setup information for this mount. I’m familiar with harmonic mounts coming off using my AM5. I’m a huge fan of harmonic mounts and went with the HAE69C EC to handle the weight of my EdgeHD 11. So far, I’ve been impressed by the mount and the encoders have been sufficient to allow 3 second guide exposures which helps to find enough stars with my OAG.

This was when using the ASIAIR which has few user options within their “PHD2” light implementation. The ASIAIR served me well when I lived in Arizona. The abundance of clear nights allowed me to trade simplicity for imaging efficiency. Now that I’m living in central Washington, clear nights are less common and summer nights are very short. As a result, I’m in the process of transitioning to NINA in order to make my imaging sessions more efficient. I’m looking forward to features like filter offsets since I’m a mono imager.

I’m confident that I’ll be able to fine tune my settings and at least match and hopefully improve upon the guide results achieved with my ASIAIR because of everyone’s help. One the weather clears, I’m hoping that my next imaging session will be managed by NINA.

Thanks again and clear skies!

Helpful Respectful Engaging Supportive

Christoph Paulus

Jun 12, 2025

TiffsAndAstro:
How much does multi star guiding mitigate seeing?

Don't know but I never switched it off. While with the ASI2600MC DUO at 2350 mm I never had problems finding guide stars, finding a few of them for multi star guiding has been an issue.

Ashraf AbuSara:
or the wind is strong

Good point, forgot to mention that. When I noticed some occasionally bad guiding but I couldn't hear any gust (my scope is just 6 m away on my roof deck) I was wondering what was going on. Until I went outside and noticed not a real gust but increasing wind every few minutes. Bought a wind gauge and I can see a direct correlation between wind speed and guiding. So both effects (seeing and wind) add up.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the mount.

Related discussions

Lessons learned & tips from building an observatory (remote or not)

Hi all, I wanted to start a topic specifically for those of us who either have an observatory or are thinking of building one be that remote robotic or not. Whether you're in the planning stages or already running a fully automated system, I beli...

Jun 9, 2025

Both posts are incomplete, ending mid-sentence before the author finished their thought.