I have been having problems with my guiding lately. I am using the following equipment:
AP 900 GTO, ST-2K, CFW-10, Pyxis, CCDsoft, The Sky 6 and Focus Max.

I have reinitialized numerous time and tried calibrating at zero dec and at other decs. One night After a meridian flip and bad guiding I took note of the CCDAP guiding vectors. I then re calibrated anf the vectors were off about 3 degrees. I did the same thing last night and the results are almost identical. Any thoughts on what could be going wrong here? BTW why does the autoguiding calculator on the CCDware website give me different results than the one CCDAP gives me?

Chris

ccdap20081003_205142.log (21 KB, 55 downloads) Log

Hi Chris,

Do you have Precision Slew to Target optioned on (checked) ?

Hi Frank. ep sure do. The problem is that guiding goes sour anytime CCDAP calculates the vectors for a rotational change. They always seem to be very close to 3°.

Chris

That should be "Yep sure do."

Chris,

Try initializing away a bit from a cardinal point, say 10 degrees or so. See if that helps.

I have tried a few different camerqa orientations John with no real change. I will try again tonight and see what happens. My Pyxis has a bit of play in it and from what others have said this is pretty normal. I have actual sent the Pyxis back twice for adjustments and both times it came back the same way. I wonder if this bit of "play" could be a problem although I have not heard anyone else complain of it when using CCDAP.

Chris

Ok I've done some more testing. I calibrated at 0 dec and the camera was rotated about 20° from north. After the initialization process I did a short run with good guiding. I then set my target for tonight (NGC281). CCDAP slew solved and rotated the camera. Guiding started going south not too long after. I checked the calibration results and CCDAP calculated from top to bottom 308.9264, 128.9264, 33.1929, and 213.1929. I then aborted my run and did a manual calibration the results again from top to bottm are: 306.0479, 126.0452, 36.2625 and 215.7733. Guiding with these vectors is going very, very well. What am i doing wrong here?

Hi Chris,

Can you post the log for that run?

Here you go Frank. Thanks for taking the time.

ccdap20081019_205153.log (7 KB, 137 downloads) log

Chris,

The angle differences are negligible. I think you need more separation between your min and max move. .24/.33 doesn't leave enough room. I suggest a min move time of around .1 and a max move time of .4

Ok Thanks for that suggestion John. Although the move times I used are what CCDAP is suggesting and the CCD calculator on the CCDWARE website give me a different result. I'll do some more testing next time out. Thanks again.

Chris

Hi Chris,

I just noticed that you log indicates your guide rate is 1x sidereal. I might suggest you try a min/max settings of 0.06/0.2. I think John's suggestions are based on a 0.5x sidereal guide rate.

Hi Frank,
In the past .06 seems to short of a correction time for me. I will give it another try tonight though. Thans again.