This was my first night out with a working set up. I finally got all my equipment working, and a single clear night.
My setup is as follows:
ES102ED FCD100 Scope
.8x Stellarvue reducer
Celestron AVX Mount
ASI1600MM-C main camera
ASI224MC guide camera
Stellarvue 50mm guide scope
Moonlite focuser with Moonlite stepper motor and controller
Basic experience follows:
Roughly aligning Polaris through the polar scope.
Connected all equipment and started EKOS/INDI
I started by running a focus routine on the Moonlite focuser, and this worked great on the first try.
I then wanted to align with preselecting 3 alignment stars using the auto routine in EKOS. I selected the first star which should have been high and to the west, and the scope pointed at the ground, so I stopped everything and disconnected EKOS.
I ran through the basic goto /alignment routine built into the hand controller (2+4 star align). Then moved the mount to the home position (basically pointed at Polaris), and reconnected EKOS. (as a side note: I set the park position to the current home position. But no matter what I tried, every time I parked the scope, it started slewing to some strange destination, and not the home position. I don't really need the park feature, but would like it if the scope could return to this home position and park so that I can tear down the equipment the next morning without needing to move it.)
This time I was able to point to objects using the built in mount controller for EKOS, and pointed and solved a few objects with no issue. The mount was able to correct it's GOTO and sync the proper location. From here on out the GOTO model seemed very precise.
I picked an object to image, and loaded my LRGB sequence I had made.
Went to the guide tab to start guiding and I began to quickly run into problems. It does not seem the data coming off the guide camera (ASI224MC) is coming across correctly. It's really garbled and pink/blue. I wish I took some images, but I didn't. I tried a bunch of the settings, including setting to 8-bit, RGB, 16-bit, and I modified the guiding software settings to different exposures, as well as tried some of the effects settings such as high contrast, additive, etc. Some of those settings had an effect on the final guiding images coming through, like additive (I think it was called) provided more regular images, but they were very dim, and any changes to gain or exposure length had little effect.
Eventually, I changed from the internal guider to PHD2, and loaded it up, picked a guide star, calibrated it, and started guiding. I switched back to EKOS, and it had already picked up the guiding signal from PHD2, and I started imaging my target.
I wish I could get the internal guiding working, because I'd prefer to use one program, but overall, I'm very pleased to get it all running and working in my first session, and can't wait to get outside again for another session.
In my second session, I'll now have a better idea how to start the routine, and I'll probably start guiding with PHD2 unless a solution presents itself for working with the ASI224MC through these message boards or elsewhere.