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Internal guider questions

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Hi!

Interesting. I don't know now, when and how I had PHD2 running. But I switched the Ekos profile between PHD2 and internal. Stopping, changing, restarting it.

I don't see any references to PHD2 btw 22:50 and 22:58 - what makes you think they both ran? What do you see in the log?

Magnus
2 years 10 months ago #71332

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Wolfgang: That log that Magnus included is not a PHD2 log, it is an Ekos internal-guider log, that outputs in PHD2 log format, so that one can view the recording with phdlogview.

Magnus: Do you have any logs or other information related to the 3.5.3 crashes you experienced?

Also, you say that PHD2 worked well after the EKos logging. Can you send me the PHD2 log for that, that comes right after the EKos guide_log on May 15 23:15--23:21 (filename guide_log-2021-05-15T23-15-16.txt)? I'm curious to compare the calibrations used (which are given in the header of the guide log).  For instance, the Ekos one says:  xAngle = 90.1, xRate = 1.651, yAngle = 5.0, yRate = 7.561

Hy
Last edit: 2 years 10 months ago by Hy Murveit.
2 years 10 months ago #71333

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Hi!

I don't have a log for the 3.5.3-session - logging was not turned on, unfortunately. I've updated it now and turned logging on and will see of I can produce more crashes. 

Attached is the PHD2 log, starting immediately after I turned off the internal solver. 

Magnus
2 years 10 months ago #71338
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Sorry, as Hi pointed out, I was mislead by the EKOS guiding log, I thought it was a PHD log.
2 years 10 months ago #71340

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Thanks.  The calibration angles aren't too different. However, the calibration pixels/second parameter (how many seconds of pulse are required to move so many pixels) vary a moderate amount, e.g. PHD2 calibrated RA as 1.3 pixels/second and Ekos found 1.65. So, assuming you're using GPG in Ekos (and Predictive PEC in PHD2), ekos would be a bit less aggressive for the same parameters. I kind of doubt that's the issue, though. (They vary more in DEC, but Ekos doesn't use the DEC pixels/second calibration value).

I did notice that in your PHD2 log, that it was calm for the first 15 minutes (23:23 - 23:38), but then there were 4 RA spikes during PHD2 guiding between 23:38 and 23:51, similar to the ones you observed in Ekos.
If you have a chance, could you repeat the experiment (guiding with PHD2 first for 10 minutes, then Ekos this time for 10 minutes or until things get obviously bad) to double check?

Here's a screen shot of a part of the first PHD2 guiding data

 

Thanks!
2 years 10 months ago #71345
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Hi!

The RA spikes have been a recurrent issue with the mount (stiil not fully understood). I do not have many of them nowadays, so I was surprised to see these four yesterday. However, in Ekos, they turned into wild swings, not just a one-sided spike, if I got it right. 

I'll do a test run next time the cluods part. 

Magnus
2 years 10 months ago #71348

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Hi!

Here's a log with a crash in the 3.5.3-system (slighly off topic but since you asked for it :)). 

Guide logs coming in 20 mins. 

Magnus
2 years 10 months ago #71359
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Hi!

So (somewhat later than I intended), here are two logs. In the PHD2-file, there are 2 runs of about 10 mins. The Kstars log is shorter. It seemed that there were no corrections at all, again. Now I switched back to PHD2, and it works nicely again. What might I do wrong here....?

Magnus
2 years 10 months ago #71360
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Replied by Alfred on topic Internal guider questions

I can confirm Magnus' issue. Tonight there were just a few holes in the clouds so I was chasing stars that disappeared within minutes. Accordingly, my logfiles aren't very helpful and a mess to wade through. Nevertheless I was able to gather a few calibration attempts and as it was the case with Magnus' G11, the mount didn't move in DEC. 



You can see the 5 iterations (500ms pulse) in RA and a couple more on the way back. When DEC calibration starts, the mount basically doesn't move. I suspect the minor movement that you can see here is the result of awful seeing plus polar alignment error.

Another attempt, same result:

 

It's 100% overcast now so I am unable to investigate further.
KStars and Indi compiled from GIT today.
Last edit: 2 years 10 months ago by Alfred.
2 years 10 months ago #71472
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Replied by Alfred on topic Internal guider questions

A few other quirks that I spotted during testing:

1. I started with SEP-multistar. After clicking "Guide" to start calibration, an error message "failed to select an auto star" appeared (as just one bright enough star was in the field of view) even though "Autostar" was not ticked. I find this confusing. In case SEP-multistar always selects the guide star on its own (I'm not sure), the "Auto Star" box should be ticked and greyed out automatically once SEP-multistar is chosen.

 

2. Since SEP-multistar didn't find proper stars to guide on, I reverted to SEP. Once I clicked "Guide", the calibration process started. However, the (0,0) reference point that Ekos chose was the position of the red marker rather than the actual position of the guide star. Instead of accepting a previously marked position as a reference point, Ekos should ask the user to mark the guide star every time "Guide" has been clicked (provided Autostar is inactive). Secondly, once the guide star is marked, Ekos should take one frame to determine the actual position of the guide star and mark it as reference point before sending the first RA pulse. As it is now, results may look like this:

 
Last edit: 2 years 10 months ago by Alfred.
2 years 10 months ago #71515
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Replied by Alfred on topic Internal guider questions

Today I had another try and to my utter astonishment everything went perfectly. I got crystal clear calibration including DEC. I have no idea what has changed as I did not touch the rig since my last attempt.

 

SEP with subframe did work very well, too. WTF!

 
Last edit: 2 years 10 months ago by Alfred.
2 years 10 months ago #71565
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Hi all
Are there any updates in the matter? I'm struggling currently with the same symptoms Magnus an Alfred describe while trying to guide internally on KStars 3.5.3 stable.  The "behaviour" of the guide-module seems very erratic especially with 'SEP-Multistar', but sometimes with "Smart"-Pofile too!
Last edit: 2 years 9 months ago by Toni Schriber.
2 years 9 months ago #72542

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