Hi!

I'm having Ekos up and running nicely, remotely connecting from my sofa to a laptop beside my telescope outdoors. However, I have some troubles with the guide module. My experiences are limited, due to few clear nights, but these are my experiences and problems for the moment:

First, after having calibrated and started guiding, the guide module seemed to send a lot of REC-signals to the mount, creating rather long startrails north-south. These were not caused by bad polar alignment, since exposures of the same length (60 sek) unguided shows rather small drift (I can post a picture of this if it helps).

So I tried to turn DEC guiding off, by unchecking the DEC-box in the module. But the graph kept showing corrections in DEC (as did the values for adjustment and so on). I also tried checking the "switch" but with no visible result.

Then, to save my observation time, I swithched to PHD2, that actually worked nicely, without this kind of problems. this would imply that my mount and camera works OK, I believe.

Any ideas on what to try, experiment with and so on? Which algoritm should work? I have a Losmandy G-11 mount - anyone having similar setup and having it work?

Magnus

Enable verbose logging in KStars then send me the kstars.log file after you guide. Also, what is the guider CCD? is it on a separate guide scope? What is the focal length? aperture? ...etc

Hi!

I cannot find the log file. I'm working with the telescope right now, enabling logging and verbose output. The log file should be in /tmp/indi_qhy_ccd_2015-12-23T19:45:01.log

But there is no such file. Neither is there any ~/tmp/folder, but there is a ~/log-folder, with a number of liles, the latest of which are:
indi_qhy_ccd_201510261859_020400_000.log
indi_qhy_ccd_201511152331_019992_000.log

The permissions for /tmp is:
drwxrwxrwt 24 root root 12288 dec 23 21:12 tmp

What is wrong here? Where is the log file, or can I set the location to somewhere where I can find it?

Magnus

Here you can specify where you want your logfile..

OK, I found it. It seems there was no log file in /tmp/ when I was running remotely. So I switched and placed my primary laptop next to the scope, and connceted locally. And here is the log file. I've been guding for about 45 minutes, and after this time, I am way off from my target - it is no longer in the FOV of the camera.

The guidecam is QHY5, the guidescope 70 mm opening, 500 mm focal length. The main telescope is a G8, 200 mm opening and about 1300 mm focal length with the field flattener on. The mount is Losmandy G11, Gemini 1, level 4.

Log file attached. What more can I produce to help understand this?

Magnus

It appears there is some confusion here. There are two LOG files:

1.Client log file: KStars log file (as seen in Maxer screenshot) and this is what you must enable as well because KStars is doing the guiding process. Select "Verbose" and output to FIle exactly as Maxer. This is important to analyze the guiding if there is something wrong.
2. Driver log file: The INDI driver (QHY CCD) debug log which is what you attached. You only need to send that if the INDI driver is either crashing or not working correctly (i.e. the driver is not capturing images or some other error.

Since the problem is in the GUIDING process, we need the #1 log file (though having #2 doesn't hurt). From #2 it looks like QHY is working fine. If you are connecting remotely to QHY, then the log file will be stored on the remote unit under /tmp

I hope this clears up the confusion.

Hi!

OK, so here's the kstars.log, with verbose debugging turned on. I am currently guiding and for the moment it seems to work nicely - I've been playing a lot with the settings (although I'm not sure how they really work). Before, I hade to turn guiding off a number of times because the guide star trailed off - that should be in the file as well.

Anything you think I should try or experiment with?

Magnus

I found that the most important stuff are not in the software at all. Make sure the telescope is well balanced and that you have a very accurate polar alignment and given a half-decent mount, guiding should mostly work without major hiccups. The log shows everything OK. The only settings that have notable effect are the propotional gains, it's a simple multiplier. You increase it if you see one of the axis is constantly 'lagging' behind the correction, and if it is was over-correcting, then you reduce it. Usually, the default values given a 0.5x guide rate are OK for most situations. The 0.5x rate is that rate of your mount, so make sure your mount guide rate is 0.5x. If it is another value, change it in the guide module to get more reasonable values for proportional gain. For 0.5x, the suggested proportional gain is 133x, and it is different for different guide rates.

OK. The scope is well balanced, and I've done drift alignment, so I feel it is quite OK polar aligned. In fact, NOT guided pictures are generally better than guided, at least up to 3 min exposure time.

However, it did work reasonably well last night. All pictures do show trails, so they are not very useful, but at least it does not wonder off but stays within a reasonable area.

So, if I get it right, what I'd need to do is precisely play around with the settings?
And what to you mean with 0.5x rate is the rate of my mount?
I was also playing around with the integrative and derivative gains (mine in swedish, so I'm uncertain of the wording here) - I guess at least one of these has to do with cumulative effects, as opposed to direct proportional? Is there anywhere I can learn more about what these different values are?

Magnus

When I say trails, this is what I mean:



This was guided with default settings, guiding rate 05x, proportional gain 133.

And here is an unguided 120 sek picture from the same area:




Also: it seems that I cannot turn the Dec guiding off. The log file I posted earlier was produced mostly (except the last few minutes) with the Dec box unchecked. But it does guide in Dec anyway, dosen't it?

Magnus

No it doesn't guide if you turn off DEC. It still displays what correction is required, but the correction is not sent to the mount. Do it with DEC turned on, then send the log. Are you guiding in a separate guide scope? Did you put its focal length/aperture in the mount driver?

Hi!

The last few minutes of the guide log I sent, was with Dec turned on. It's a separate guidescope. Focail length 500mm, aperture 70mm, all set in the Indi settings. If not (sometimes it seems not to load the settings on start), it complains and I set them again.

Unfortunately, I cannot guide now... have to wait with further experiments until next clear night...

Magnus