Guiding problem - what happened here? - Forums

My setup has been working very nicely recently and last night I programmed an Autorun, using my ASIair Plus, to shoot M13. I calibrated the guiding and got it to less than 1" and set it off.

The first three frames were fine. The fourth, however...

...and the rest of the night appears to have continued in that vein, with nothing but streaks.

What might have caused this? There were no snags, nothing was loose, there were no clouds....nothing obvious (to me).

Can anyone see anything obvious in the logs?

PHD2_GuideLog_2023-05-22_224535.txt

Autorun_Log_2023-05-22_225901.txt

I never really know what I'm doing, but it does normally work!

Do you have a dead pixel mask on PhD2? Could be that PhD2 selected a dead pixel which would counter the guiding.

Hi Piers,

I can’t properly look at the PHD2 Viewer to see the guide log, but just scanning through the text file on my phone, I see that the RA and DEC guide speed is “unknown “.
Perhaps the mount is not tracking?

I don’t know if you’ve used the Open PHD2 Guiding forum, but they are a great bunch of extremely helpful folks.

Good Luck!

Jim

https://groups.google.com/g/open-phd-guiding

Thanks both.

D. Jung:
Do you have a dead pixel mask on PhD2? Could be that PhD2 selected a dead pixel which would counter the guiding.

Possibly, but I use multi-star guiding so I'm guessing that would prevent that happening?

Jim Raskett:
Perhaps the mount is not tracking?

Interesting - I've noticed a weird thing when sometimes I swipe the screen away on my iPhone or iPad and it seems to kill the mount's tracking. I don't know why, but it does. However, that was the first thing I checked for this morning and the tracking was still active and the mount was still moving.

Hmmmm.

I'll give that group a go - thank you!

Do try the PHD2 forum. After all, they are the folks that developed it.
They have probably seen it all!

They will probably ask you to upload the logs from within the application.
( Help - Upload Log Files)

Jim

I already have done - great advice, so thank you! I had no idea it existed.

Hi Piers,

I saw your post on the PHD2 forum.

I guess that Brian is saying that this isn’t a PHD2 issue?

The stars are trailing because tracking is off?

If that is the case, hopefully ZWO can help.
Have you tried posting to the ZWO forum?
https://bbs.astronomy-imaging-camera.com

It’s one of the few forums that I’m not a member of!

Jim

Is it safe to rule out any power source issues? You aren't overtaxing the mount power source or something like that?

In theory….moving away from the app with asiair shouldn't change anything since it's talking directly to the mount (regardless whether you are staring at it or not) In reality I've seen some interesting glitches with my ioptron mount.

Are all the firmwares updated?

I've seen something like this on my ioptron. It was like the mount got confused and just stopped. I had to basically turn it all off and start up again. Then the problem disappeared. Just guessing, but it was like the mount choked on too many commands or something. I haven't seen it recently though.

Jim Raskett:
Hi Piers,

If that is the case, hopefully ZWO can help.
Have you tried posting to the ZWO forum?
https://bbs.astronomy-imaging-camera.com

It’s one of the few forums that I’m not a member of!

Jim

Thanks Jim - I'm a member there so I'll ask, there next.

Nick Grundy:
2.41
Nick Grundy#3 minutes ago
Is it safe to rule out any power source issues? You aren't overtaxing the mount power source or something like that?

Yeah - it's mains powered and via a regulated supply, so I don't think that will have been an issue, but I'll check all the connections.

What you say about closing the app not affecting things makes sense, and I close the app (or move away from it) countless times without issue, so I suspect it's something else.

Hopefully someone on the ZWO forum can identify something!

I had something similar happen but with the Asiair +, just recently . It happened 2x now and I have an EQ6R Pro mount. Basically it was imaging fine for 1-2hrs and then the mount just stopped tracking. I checked the mount with the hand controller, there are no limits imposed, no parking positions added or anything. The weird thing is, it only happens when I use the Asiair plus. Cause= remains unknown, since I can't find a trace of what made the mount stop tracking.
Since you got a different mount, I'd double check if there are no limits put on the mount software, many mounts allows a 90 degree and 0 degree limit, both would make the mount stop tracking reaching those limits.

Hi Piers,

Very puzzling that you went for over 3 hours without finding a guide star. My first thought was if the guider was in focus, or if condensation or another object was obscuring the line of sight. Also wondering if you got any other ASIAIR error messages, such as "increase exposure time or increase gain". When haze or thin clouds are present I get that message frequently.

Good luck !

I'd tweaked the focusing on the guide scope the night before and it was all nice and tight. The individual subs suggest there was the odd bit of cloud during the night, but it looked mostly clear. There were no other error messages (that I noticed anyway).

Here are frames 30, 60 and 90, to illustrate the point.

Hi Piers,

Please excuse my lack of knowledge of the ASI Air Plus. I thought that the ASI Air Plus had its own guiding software built in. Or, is PHD2 built into the ASI Air Plus?

Jim

My understanding is the ASIair uses a form of PHD2, but I don't know how close to the real thing it is…or if I'm right!

Jim Raskett:
Hi Piers,

Please excuse my lack of knowledge of the ASI Air Plus. I thought that the ASI Air Plus had its own guiding software built in. Or, is PHD2 built into the ASI Air Plus?

Jim

There are entire threads here and on CN about how much open source software the ASIAir uses while violating the licenses over and over. The worst part is the could legally use it if they followed the licenses.

Piers Palmer:
My understanding is the ASIair uses a form of PHD2, but I don't know how close to the real thing it is...or if I'm right!

Got you Piers!

Sorry for miss-directing you in the early post about going to the PHD2 Forum. I saw the name “PHD2” in the guide log that you attached and mistakenly thought that you were using PHD2 for guiding.
No wonder that they directed you to the ZWO forum!

Jim

Thanks both. Now Joe mentions it, it all comes flooding back.

Maybe over the light summer evenings I’ll give Nina a go. I have a spare laptop. What do I have to lose?!

This looks similar to what happens when ASIair has its Calibration axis set for the wrong quadrant of the sky. It happens every once and awhile. ASI software automatically flips the calibration as you move to different parts of the sky, but sometimes it forgets…or is on the wrong axis at startup and stayed that way because you may not have recalibrated.

Hit the guiding graph in the upper left on the main scope view, then touch to top icon on the right…a right angle with a crosshair. You'll see a "flip" and "clear" button. You can try flip to see if the anomaly immediately corrects. Or hit clear and resume guiding, the mount will recalibrate.

Brilliant - thank you! I often wondered what that actually meant. I do recalibrate every session, but the next time it happens when I'm awake, I'll try that.