More Problems (Notes to Myself)

Just so I can remember how to move the alt-az knobs on the mount when doing the DSLR iterative method of polar alignment.....

When the scope is pointed to the south and you're doing the "left button, then right button thing" with the hand pad, then the following holds true:

If the line ends on the RIGHT or ABOVE the initial line, then loosen the Left Knob.

And if the line ends on the LEFT or BELOW the initial line, then loosen the RIGHT KNOB.

WHEN THE SCOPE IS SOUTH:   Basically, loosen the knob opposite the direction of the end line of the V.


When the scope is pointed to the east and you're doing the left/right button thing,
then the following holds true:

If the line is to the RIGHT or ABOVE the initial line, then you must TIGHTEN (push up)
the altitude.

If the line is the LEFT or BELOW the initial line, then you must LOOSEN (or drop) the altitude.

WHEN THE SCOPE IS EAST:  Basically, left is loosen, right is tight.


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I confirmed the finicky behavior of PHD2 and BYEOS when setting up dithering.   When I tried to enable the server in PHD2 and connect both the mount and QHY5L-II, the system basically crashed.
All my devices became a problem.   Had to restart the computer to get everything going again.

SO.....  the procedure is with a clean taskbar (NO OTHER OPEN APPS) open PHD2 and enable server.   DO NOTHING ELSE and close PHD2.

Then re-open PHD2 and connect ONLY the camera.   Start a looping 2 sec (or whatever) feed from the autoguider, wait to get some images, then hit STOP.   Connect the mount, then re-start the loop.  And you can begin calibration.

The dithering was fine via BYEOS.

When I tried Sequence Generator Pro I tried to dither, but it was out of SYNC so that after a run of 2 minute images, PHD2 would show crazy dec corrections.  But before any settling could take place, SGP would start another exposure.    Bad.

As far as SGP auto-focus, I got it to work better but I wasn't really confident I was getting the best focus possible.   Part of the problem was that I couldn't find a really good exposure to let the autofocus do it's thing.   When I set it to 6400 ISO and 1-2 seconds, the autofocus routine would start identifying all the noise as stars and it often thought that first focus was the best.   >SIGH<   When it showed images, it was obvious that the stars were out of focus.

It took me awhile (a long while) to discover an exposure combination that allowed the auto focus to work.  I seemed to get close with 1600 ISO and 10 seconds while increasing the nebula rejection setting to about 1/3.....  this worked okay.   Oh yeah, step size of 3 and choosing 9 data points.  AND your focus has to be close in the first place.

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The nice thing is I was able to get better guiding with PHD2 in terms of aggressiveness and min movement settings.   It seemed the best guiding occurred when Dec corrections  were only happening in one direction.   The RA oscillation seemed to almost get cut in half.   But I'm not sure this works with dithering.


Anyways, so I'm faced with a very dissatisfying first encounter with SGP and auto-focusing.   I've spent two nights trying to get things working and I feel like I need more time to tinker, but I also feel like I'm wasting precious imaging time.