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Re: Guide star lost after dithering

yanzhe liu
 

Yes, exposure time was 900s.


On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 6:25 PM Brian Valente <bvalente@...> wrote:
Are you doing 15 minute exposures?

The dither distances and settling look fine from a PHD perspective, although I can see a big spike in guidestar SNR roughly every 900 seconds

On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 5:49 PM yanzhe liu <liuyanzhe@...> wrote:
Here is the log:

https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_xGZF.zip

I have not used the log before but I think this is the dither causing issue. I then restarted the sequence by turning dither off.

19:29:39.383 00.003 2112 PhdController::Dither begins
19:29:39.386 00.003 2112 dither: size=1.00, dRA=-0.61 dDec=0.00
19:29:39.389 00.003 2112 MountToCamera -- mountTheta (3.14) + m_xAngle (-1.59) = xAngle (1.55 = 1.55)
19:29:39.392 00.003 2112 MountToCamera -- mountX=-0.61 mountY=0.00 hyp=0.61 mountTheta=3.14 cameraX=0.01, cameraY=0.61 cameraTheta=1.55
19:29:39.395 00.003 2112 setting lock position to (121.19, 18.76)
19:29:39.398 00.003 2112 Mount: notify guiding dithered (0.0, 0.6)
19:29:39.401 00.003 2112 MultiStar: stabilizing after lock position change
19:29:39.403 00.002 2112 Status Line: Dither by -0.61,0.00



--
Brian 



Brian Valente
Re: Guide star lost after dithering

Brian Valente
 

Are you doing 15 minute exposures?

The dither distances and settling look fine from a PHD perspective, although I can see a big spike in guidestar SNR roughly every 900 seconds

On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 5:49 PM yanzhe liu <liuyanzhe@...> wrote:
Here is the log:

https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_xGZF.zip

I have not used the log before but I think this is the dither causing issue. I then restarted the sequence by turning dither off.

19:29:39.383 00.003 2112 PhdController::Dither begins
19:29:39.386 00.003 2112 dither: size=1.00, dRA=-0.61 dDec=0.00
19:29:39.389 00.003 2112 MountToCamera -- mountTheta (3.14) + m_xAngle (-1.59) = xAngle (1.55 = 1.55)
19:29:39.392 00.003 2112 MountToCamera -- mountX=-0.61 mountY=0.00 hyp=0.61 mountTheta=3.14 cameraX=0.01, cameraY=0.61 cameraTheta=1.55
19:29:39.395 00.003 2112 setting lock position to (121.19, 18.76)
19:29:39.398 00.003 2112 Mount: notify guiding dithered (0.0, 0.6)
19:29:39.401 00.003 2112 MultiStar: stabilizing after lock position change
19:29:39.403 00.002 2112 Status Line: Dither by -0.61,0.00



--
Brian 



Brian Valente
Re: Guide star lost after dithering

yanzhe liu
 

I also posted the same question on PHD2 forum.
Re: Guide star lost after dithering

yanzhe liu
 

Since both SGP and PHD2 have been used by many customers, I am looking for suggestion on Mach2 mount debug.
Re: Guide star lost after dithering

yanzhe liu
 

Here is the log:

https://openphdguiding.org/logs/dl/PHD2_logs_xGZF.zip

I have not used the log before but I think this is the dither causing issue. I then restarted the sequence by turning dither off.

19:29:39.383 00.003 2112 PhdController::Dither begins
19:29:39.386 00.003 2112 dither: size=1.00, dRA=-0.61 dDec=0.00
19:29:39.389 00.003 2112 MountToCamera -- mountTheta (3.14) + m_xAngle (-1.59) = xAngle (1.55 = 1.55)
19:29:39.392 00.003 2112 MountToCamera -- mountX=-0.61 mountY=0.00 hyp=0.61 mountTheta=3.14 cameraX=0.01, cameraY=0.61 cameraTheta=1.55
19:29:39.395 00.003 2112 setting lock position to (121.19, 18.76)
19:29:39.398 00.003 2112 Mount: notify guiding dithered (0.0, 0.6)
19:29:39.401 00.003 2112 MultiStar: stabilizing after lock position change
19:29:39.403 00.002 2112 Status Line: Dither by -0.61,0.00
Re: APCC Not Restarting Cleanly

Ray Gralak
 

Hi Jerome,

Ray I am still confused since that call is right at the top of the Shutdown Script.
They can be two separate connections to the telescope - one from ACP and the other from MaximDL. In your script, I see that ACP is disconnecting from the telescope, but I do not see a call disconnecting MaximDL from the telescope.

Have you posted about this issue to the ACP forum? If there is a question of what needs to be done, have Bob Denny contact me.

-Ray


-----Original Message-----
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io [mailto:main@ap-gto.groups.io] On Behalf Of Jerome A Yesavage
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2021 1:43 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] APCC Not Restarting Cleanly

Ray I am still confused since that call is right at the top of the Shutdown Script.

I changed the order of the shutdown so that the last thing powered off is the mount and I still have the driver
problem when I restart and have to reboot the computer.

function main()
{
var SEQTOK, buf;
var doDawnCalFrames = false;

FSO = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");

Console.LogFile = Prefs.LocalUser.DefaultLogDir + "\\Scheduler\\ShutdownObs-" +
Util.FormatVar(new Date().getVarDate(), "yyyymmdd") + "@" +
Util.FormatVar(new Date().getVarDate(), "HhNnSs") + ".log";
Console.Logging = true;


//
// Similar to shutdown logic in AcquireSupport.wsc
//

if(Telescope.Connected) {
Console.PrintLine("Parking scope 2");
Telescope.Park(); // Park the scope if possible, and/or close/park dome
Console.PrintLine("OK");
if(Telescope.Connected) {
Console.PrintLine("Disconnecting Scope 2");
Telescope.Connected = false;
}
Re: Guide star lost after dithering

Roland Christen
 


One strange thing is that whenever the guide star is lost, there is always a big spike on DEC guiding (and the spike is always 12 pixels),
You will need to look at your PHD log file to see what PHD is sending to the mount. I assume your dither is set to move the mount at 1x sidereal for a fraction of a second, is that correct? If you are sending a co-ordinate move, you may be sending the mount in both axes to a previous location.

Rolando


-----Original Message-----
From: yanzhe liu <liuyanzhe@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Tue, Nov 23, 2021 3:27 pm
Subject: [ap-gto] Guide star lost after dithering

Not sure what the issue is and whether it is mount related, hope someone can help me out.

I have been using SGPro + PHD2 + AP mount without any issue for years, but recently PHD2 often loses guide star after dithering.

It happens to mach2 mount only (so far so good for AP1100), but it did not happen until I upgraded PHD2 to 2.6.10 (and 2.6.9dev4 for multi-star guiding).

One strange thing is that whenever the guide star is lost, there is always a big spike on DEC guiding (and the spike is always 12 pixels), even though I enable PHD2 "RA only" dither. Changing SGP settings does not help either (except disabling dither).

--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
Re: [ap-ug] Milky Way Companion

thefamily90 Phillips
 

Beautiful! Well done Rolando!!

JimP

From: main@ap-ug.groups.io <main@ap-ug.groups.io> on behalf of Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011@...>
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2021 3:33:26 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io>; main@ap-ug.groups.io <main@ap-ug.groups.io>
Subject: [ap-ug] Milky Way Companion
 
One last image from my recent Hawaii trip - the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy. I was fortunate to have good seeing conditions for my Luminance exposures. Next night I tried to get RGB but the seeing deteriorated badly and these subs did not turn out well. So, we have only the Luminance version. I was surprised how bright it was and how well the stars resolved, even though I was shooting quite low to the south.

The images were taken for the most part unguided using keypad modeling. Some of the last few were bump guided (gently nudged every 10 seconds). As the galaxy started to dip towards the horizon over the Pacific ocean the Luminance stars started to stretch out due to atmospheric refraction - the dispersion of the various colors that also causes the Green flash when the sun sets.

175 EDF refractor without flattener, 683 WSG camera, mounted on the AP 1600 encoder mount.

https://www.astrobin.com/pt6wm2/0/

Rolando
Re: Guide star lost after dithering

Brian Valente
 

Hi yanzhe liu

Your question is probably better answered in the PHD user forums, but either way, you will need to upload your guidelogs


Brian




On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 1:28 PM yanzhe liu <liuyanzhe@...> wrote:
Not sure what the issue is and whether it is mount related, hope someone can help me out.

I have been using SGPro + PHD2 + AP mount without any issue for years, but recently PHD2 often loses guide star after dithering.

It happens to mach2 mount only (so far so good for AP1100), but it did not happen until I upgraded PHD2 to 2.6.10 (and 2.6.9dev4 for multi-star guiding).

One strange thing is that whenever the guide star is lost, there is always a big spike on DEC guiding (and the spike is always 12 pixels), even though I enable PHD2 "RA only" dither. Changing SGP settings does not help either (except disabling dither).



--
Brian 



Brian Valente
Re: APCC Not Restarting Cleanly

Jerome A Yesavage
 

Ray I am still confused since that call is right at the top of the Shutdown Script.

I changed the order of the shutdown so that the last thing powered off is the mount and I still have the driver problem when I restart and have to reboot the computer. 

function main()
{
    var SEQTOK, buf;
    var doDawnCalFrames = false;
    
    FSO = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");

    Console.LogFile = Prefs.LocalUser.DefaultLogDir + "\\Scheduler\\ShutdownObs-" +
                Util.FormatVar(new Date().getVarDate(), "yyyymmdd") + "@" +
                Util.FormatVar(new Date().getVarDate(), "HhNnSs") + ".log";
    Console.Logging = true;

    
    //
    // Similar to shutdown logic in AcquireSupport.wsc
    //
    
    if(Telescope.Connected) {
        Console.PrintLine("Parking scope 2");
        Telescope.Park();                                               // Park the scope if possible, and/or close/park dome
        Console.PrintLine("OK");
        if(Telescope.Connected) {
            Console.PrintLine("Disconnecting Scope 2");
            Telescope.Connected = false;
        }
Guide star lost after dithering

yanzhe liu
 

Not sure what the issue is and whether it is mount related, hope someone can help me out.

I have been using SGPro + PHD2 + AP mount without any issue for years, but recently PHD2 often loses guide star after dithering.

It happens to mach2 mount only (so far so good for AP1100), but it did not happen until I upgraded PHD2 to 2.6.10 (and 2.6.9dev4 for multi-star guiding).

One strange thing is that whenever the guide star is lost, there is always a big spike on DEC guiding (and the spike is always 12 pixels), even though I enable PHD2 "RA only" dither. Changing SGP settings does not help either (except disabling dither).
Milky Way Companion

Roland Christen
 

One last image from my recent Hawaii trip - the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy. I was fortunate to have good seeing conditions for my Luminance exposures. Next night I tried to get RGB but the seeing deteriorated badly and these subs did not turn out well. So, we have only the Luminance version. I was surprised how bright it was and how well the stars resolved, even though I was shooting quite low to the south.

The images were taken for the most part unguided using keypad modeling. Some of the last few were bump guided (gently nudged every 10 seconds). As the galaxy started to dip towards the horizon over the Pacific ocean the Luminance stars started to stretch out due to atmospheric refraction - the dispersion of the various colors that also causes the Green flash when the sun sets.

175 EDF refractor without flattener, 683 WSG camera, mounted on the AP 1600 encoder mount.

https://www.astrobin.com/pt6wm2/0/

Rolando

--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
Re: Upgrade to APCC Pro 1.9.0.11

Chris White
 

On Mon, Nov 22, 2021 at 06:22 PM, Patrick Spencer wrote:
I am ready to upgrade APCC Pro to version 1.9.0.11. I am currently running version 1.8.8.17. Is it OK to install version 1.9.0.11 over the existing installation, or should I uninstall the old version first?

Thanks,

Patrick Spencer

 It may be just an anecdote,  but I just upgraded when I did it without removing the previous version. The Eltima drivers updated fine.  Maybe I got lucky?
Re: Eltima Virtual Ports

Ray Gralak
 

David,

What do you mean by "Eltima is still not downloading"?

-Ray

-----Original Message-----
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io [mailto:main@ap-gto.groups.io] On Behalf Of hawkp60@...
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2021 10:20 AM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Eltima Virtual Ports

Ray,

The Eltima is still not downloading. Windows must be interfering in some way. I going to reinstall win 11 and
restore the computer to an earlier date.

David
Re: Eltima Virtual Ports

Mike C
 

After a few days of troubleshooting dysfunctional APCC virtual serial ports a windows rebuild fixed my issue.


On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 9:20 AM <hawkp60@...> wrote:
Ray,

The Eltima is still not downloading. Windows must be interfering in some way. I going to reinstall win 11 and restore the computer to an earlier date. 

David

Re: Eltima Virtual Ports

hawkp60@...
 

Ray,

The Eltima is still not downloading. Windows must be interfering in some way. I going to reinstall win 11 and restore the computer to an earlier date. 

David
Re: Leo Galaxy Tour

Roland Christen
 

Yes, I was also puzzled by the dual designation of 2903/2905.

Rolando

-----Original Message-----
From: Howard Ritter via groups.io <howard.ritter@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Tue, Nov 23, 2021 6:56 am
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Leo Galaxy Tour

Detail in dust lanes that would do credit to a scope of only 2 or 3 times the aperture, not 10x? Yeah, I feel your embarrassment!

The NGC 2903/2905 designations are interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the NGC (wrongly) designate a feature in a galaxy as a second galaxy in its own right. The visual observations on which the catalog was based evidently didn’t go deep enough to show both the nucleus and the knot of 2903 as part of a single galaxy, and the observer took them for the nuclei of two galaxies.

Thanks for posting. They’re very elegant images.

—howard

On Nov 22, 2021, at 10:46 PM, Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011@...> wrote:

Hello Astronuts,

While visiting Hawaii in the spring of last year I had a few clear nights and did a galaxy tour in Leo. Here are some of the images. All were short exposures, snapshots if you will, and I was mainly concentrating in resolving the cores of these galaxies at the expense of the deeper field. Thus the short exposures of 300 to 600 seconds in order to prevent saturating the cores and blowing up the detail. I only had a few days that were suitable for imaging these cool galaxies. All were taken with the 175 EDF on the 1600 Encoder mount, unguided.

https://www.astrobin.com/um0g02/
https://www.astrobin.com/fwk2ce/
https://www.astrobin.com/g34h6r/
https://www.astrobin.com/aj8xuq/

They are in my staging area, I'm too embarrassed to show them to the rest of the Astrobin crowd Grin

Rolando

--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics


--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
Re: Mount Status Not Updating in MaxIm DL Observatory Control Window

Dale Ghent
 

On Nov 23, 2021, at 11:14, Brian Valente <bvalente@...> wrote:

I would just add that when I process my ASI6200 OSC files in PixInsight, each debayered file is around 850mb. That doesn't include the other interim files (calibrated, cosmetized, etc.). They are huge

I also try for the longest subs i can to reduce the number of files i have to integrate.
Ah yes, I forgot he as the color version. Yeah, debayering is going to blow that footprint up a bit earlier in the processing chain of events.


pull it out on the rare occasion that I need it, which is usually just to rip a music CD.
You still use Music CDs?? :-)
The music labels for the genres of music that I (used to) DJ for still release a bit of music on non-downloadable formats. Streaming and file downloads are by far typical now, but remixes and some limited edition tracks with art occasionally pop up only in CD or 12" EP only. Back in The Day(tm), before everyone had broadband and MP3s were still a twinkle in MPEG's eye, producers and DJs would mail or trade you a DAT or Sony Minidisc because the bandwidth of those in the first class or international postal mail was still better than dialup modem at the time :V
Re: Eltima Virtual Ports

hawkp60@...
 

Thanks for the information, Bob. The program (APCC and AP V2 Driver) was working fine on Win 11. I'm going to rule out the physical ports as an issue since it's the same computer.

David Burrell
Re: Eltima Virtual Ports

Ray Gralak
 

You can try this BETA version of APCC Pro, which has a newer version (V10) of the Eltima ActiveX control and drivers:

https://www.apastrosoftware.com/apcc_download/APCC_Pro_BETA_Setup_1.9.2.3.exe

-Ray

-----Original Message-----
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io [mailto:main@ap-gto.groups.io] On Behalf Of hawkp60@...
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2021 8:57 AM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: [ap-gto] Eltima Virtual Ports

Last week I spoke with Howard about the issue with Eltima. I am posting my issue here to see if anyone else
has this issue and maybe has a work around?

I have a GTOCP5 with APCC pro version 1.9.0.11. Everything was working fine until upgrading to a new
computer that runs windows 11. APCC was working fine but I had problems with my camera driver on windows
11. I uninstalled windows 11 and installed windows 10 thinking maybe that would fix the camera issue. During
the uninstall of windows 11 all the programs were deleted and I had to download APCC Pro again. The
problem is the Eltima Virtual port software is not loading (at least that's my understanding). I have uninstalled
and reinstalled APCC Pro as late as today. The Eltima is still missing. I saw a recent post where Ray said that
the Eltima drivers were updated for v1.9.0.11 - but like I mentioned the download (v1.9.0.11) doesn't appear to
be installing Eltima. Maybe I am not understanding the difference between Eltima software and the driver.
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