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PHD2/NINA & Meridian Flip

Open PHD Guiding Project PHD2 Acquisition Meridian Flip Guiding Deep Sky
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andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
I found myself attempting doing an automated merdian flip with NINA (and PHD2) and to my horror the guiding showed a unrecoverable Dec drift after around 100s. I did manually flipped the calibration in PHD but to no avail (discovered later that it won't do any good if you're using "aux"/ASCOM/Pulse guiding). So I had to recalibrate manually, as I always do, distrustful old git that I am.

Question: what I'm doing wrong here or there is a setting in NINA I forgot about?

Further (unrelated) question: Does NINA work under Win7?

Thanks

Andrea
kuechlew avatar
kuechlew avatar
You may try the "Center After Drift" trigger in NINA.

Documentation claims that Win 8.1 is the oldest supported version. This may only mean that this is the oldest version they tested the code with. Problem with unsupported versions is that while they may work they can stop working any time with the next release.

Clear skies
Wolfgang
Concise
Dale A Chamberlain avatar
Dale A Chamberlain avatar
I second the use of "Center After Drift"!
Andy Wray avatar
Andy Wray avatar
Was the scope tracking siderial after the flip.  If not, it may be down to you having enabled limits in the ASCOM telescope driver.
andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
Thanks for the suggestions but, alas, I don't think they will apply here. NINA didn't flip across the merdian because of having reached  some limit but because the new target required it. It did center it all right. The drift was in Dec only which means that the flipping didn't change the PHD2 behaviour (i.e., it didn't flip the Dec corrections orientations, as it should).
Georg N. Nyman avatar
Georg N. Nyman avatar
Andrea, I have the same problem - but only with the CGX-L mount and the Celestron software for that mount. I am running parallel on another system a EQ8R-Pro with GS Sever and there I do not have that problem. I have no idea, but I also need to recalibrate after the flip because DEC is running away. And yes, I have activated the option to swap the orientation of guiding pulses after the flip and yes, before the filp, everything works perfect.
No idea, why that happens and what to do agains it…..maybe some experienced reader of our misery can help us…

CS,
Georg
Respectful Supportive
wittinobi avatar
wittinobi avatar
Georg N. Nyman:
And yes, I have activated the option to swap the orientation of guiding pulses after the flip

Did you try without this Option?
I don't have activate this Option and have no Issues with automated Flips with N.I.N.A. and PHD2.
...i use a HEQ5Pro.
andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
Did you try without this Option?
I don't have activate this Option and have no Issues with automated Flips with N.I.N.A. and PHD2.
...i use a HEQ5Pro.


Possibly this is a mount dependant parameter? Worth a try!
Georg N. Nyman avatar
Georg N. Nyman avatar
Georg N. Nyman:
And yes, I have activated the option to swap the orientation of guiding pulses after the flip

Did you try without this Option?
I don't have activate this Option and have no Issues with automated Flips with N.I.N.A. and PHD2.
...i use a HEQ5Pro.

No, because on my second rig (EQ8R-Pro with GS),  I do need to have this activated and why should this particular one need it to be deactivated?
Georg N. Nyman avatar
Georg N. Nyman avatar
So basically if you are right - someone here is also using a CGX-L mount and the Celestron software CWPI…. what are those folks setting for/after meridian flip in PHD2?

Maybe like that we both get our problems sorted out?
andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
So the test was indeed positive, unchecking that option resulted in PHD2 doing the right thing: guiding after meridian flip. Still I'll have to understand what NINA wants from me after the flip but it'll be probably be some settings I forgot to put right along the way.

For posterity the Ioptron GEM28 does not require setting PHD2 to flip Dec correction after a meridian flip. Special thanks to wittinobi for the suggestion.
Helpful Respectful
James Tickner avatar
James Tickner avatar
Whether the ‘reverse Dec after flip’ option is needed or not is definitely mount dependent. There’s a partial list of requirements for different mounts here: https://github.com/OpenPHDGuiding/phd2/wiki/Reverse-Dec-output-after-meridian-flip

PHD2 also has a tool to test whether the reverse is needed or not which is described in the link above.
Well Written Concise
Georg N. Nyman avatar
Georg N. Nyman avatar
Oh well, thousand times thank you for that feedback - that explains why my guiding failed on the CGX-L after fliping - it states, that the reverse-DEC is not needed for that mount!

CS
Georg