PHD2, EQMOD, and maybe Orion EQ-G mount
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2022 5:32 pm
I'm putting this out in the hopes that it might help someone in the future.
Three sessions ago my laptop stopped dead in it's tracks while imaging my last object for the night. I had to reboot and repair windows to get it back running. I don't if the temperature contributed to the total shutdown - it was a 0F night. In any case after restarting the imaging session PHD2 would not guide properly. I figured it had to do with a northerly object I was tracking. Did not give it a second thought.
Two sessions ago I had a horrible night. I watched as PHD2 would try to correct the mount and then keep on correcting as the guiding passed zero into the opposite direct. I ended up doing all my imaging without guiding.
It dawned on me that perhaps PHD2 needed recalibration. So my last session I determined to do a calibrate. But it wouldn't. Again, PHD2 was sending a signal but the mount wasn't reacting. I manually slewed the mount using EQMOD to a point near the celestial equator. No problem. Weird, I thought. PHD2 would not calibrate. So I went online and found a snippet that suggested trying to manually control the mount via PHD2. The mount wouldn't budge. OK, so I had set the mount to rapid slew via EQMOD, so I set it to speed 1. Still, PHD wasn't able to keep a target star long enough for calibration to finish. Then for some unknown reason, I thought to set EQMOD to sidereal tracking. Voila' suddenly it could not just track but also calibrate.
I do not know what happened during the power down of the laptop, but something changed in EQMOD. I do not know if this behavior (ie sidereal tracking enabled) is unique to my mount, but it's something to keep in mind if your system suddenly goes bonkers.
Three sessions ago my laptop stopped dead in it's tracks while imaging my last object for the night. I had to reboot and repair windows to get it back running. I don't if the temperature contributed to the total shutdown - it was a 0F night. In any case after restarting the imaging session PHD2 would not guide properly. I figured it had to do with a northerly object I was tracking. Did not give it a second thought.
Two sessions ago I had a horrible night. I watched as PHD2 would try to correct the mount and then keep on correcting as the guiding passed zero into the opposite direct. I ended up doing all my imaging without guiding.
It dawned on me that perhaps PHD2 needed recalibration. So my last session I determined to do a calibrate. But it wouldn't. Again, PHD2 was sending a signal but the mount wasn't reacting. I manually slewed the mount using EQMOD to a point near the celestial equator. No problem. Weird, I thought. PHD2 would not calibrate. So I went online and found a snippet that suggested trying to manually control the mount via PHD2. The mount wouldn't budge. OK, so I had set the mount to rapid slew via EQMOD, so I set it to speed 1. Still, PHD wasn't able to keep a target star long enough for calibration to finish. Then for some unknown reason, I thought to set EQMOD to sidereal tracking. Voila' suddenly it could not just track but also calibrate.
I do not know what happened during the power down of the laptop, but something changed in EQMOD. I do not know if this behavior (ie sidereal tracking enabled) is unique to my mount, but it's something to keep in mind if your system suddenly goes bonkers.