5 Steps to Guiding for Astrophotography | Guiding Tips to Improve your Astrophotography
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- čas přidán 7. 07. 2024
- In this video I cover all the steps you need to know for guiding in astrophotography using PHD2. Following the steps will take you from never guiding before to setting up a guide assist and calibration to guiding like a pro! I've also included some tips at the end as well to continue to help improve your guiding on nights with bad seeing.
PHD2 - openphdguiding.org/downloads/
PHD2 Best Practices - openphdguiding.org/PHD2_BestP...
PHD2 Advanced Settings - openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Ad...
I do participate in affiliate programs, so by purchasing your equipment through the links below, you are helping support my channel at no extra cost to you. I don't make much from these, but it does help offset the cost of video editing software and music subscriptions etc.
High Point Scientific link - www.pntrac.com/t/SENKSkhPRktD...
OPT link - bit.ly/3mGEJKD
Equipment I use:
Light Panel for flats - amzn.to/3aelcxd
EdgeHD 8 - bit.ly/333Xv6L
Celestron OAG - bit.ly/2PE86SV
Celestron 0.7 Reducer - bit.ly/338gddi
ZWO ASI174MM Mini Guide Camera - bit.ly/33b4omF
Mount: EQ6-R Pro - bit.ly/38eiuqp
Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 81 APO - bit.ly/31Tw5jV
Flattener: William Optics 6aiii - bit.ly/3mzM7r5
William Optics Zenithstar 81 APO + Flattener - bit.ly/37VGIXb
Filter Wheel: ZWO EAF - bit.ly/2TFOmwA
Camera: ZWO ASI294MM Pro - bit.ly/37EpM6w
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM Pro - bit.ly/31Yq2dK
Camera Combo ASI1600MM Pro + Filters + Filter Wheel - bit.ly/37TCEXu
Guide Scope: William Optics 50mm guiding scope - bit.ly/2HS11JX
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM Mini - bit.ly/34Io431
QHY PoleMaster - bit.ly/2UQBdl0
For more information, articles, and everything astrophotography, please visit my website: joesastrophoto.com
00:00 Intro
01:25 What guiding does
05:18 Step#1
06:00 Step#2
07:51 Step#3
09:08 Step#4
11:43 Step#5
14:09 Tips to guide better
#astrophotography
#phd2 #guiding
Hey Joe! What a wonderful production mate, so concise and helpful - this will be a huge boon for many people :)
Keep it up!!
Thanks Luke, I hope it helps those just starting out to get better guiding and better images.
very thorough video, I see a couple things I need to do/ try to get better guiding... thanks Joe!!
Thanks AZ, I hope it helps you out!
Nice set of steps Joe to help people getting into guiding.
Thanks Ollie, I was hoping to help beginners, but honestly doing the video and researching things to make sure I didn’t say anything wrong taught me some things myself lol
Great video Joe. Lots of good information that will answer many questions for people.
Thanks Glenn! I tried to cover everything and not make it too boring lol
Another video connecting more dots for me. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks AG, I'm glad it was useful to you!
Thanks Joe. Very helpful!
Thanks Neil! I’m glad it helped you out.
Since I want to start with guiding for me this video was very informative and helpful. Great stuff! Thanks Joe
Thanks so much Tully! I'm glad it was helpful!
Nice and very complete video Joe! - Cheers
Thanks so much Kurt!
Some great info there Joe
Thanks Logan!
Great advice Joe :) 👍
Thanks Russell! I was just commenting with Cap below about the ASIAR and what all it can do with it's version of PHD2. I know it has multi-star guiding now which must be nice.
@@JoesAstrophoto yeah it’s got multi star guiding now. The update was released a few weeks back...it’s be raining ever since 😂 really excited to try it out
Perfect
Thanks Dan!
Wise tips! A question: I noticed in your intro that you use the hand control port to control your EQ6-R Pro instead of the USB one. I guess using a dedicated cable connected either to a USB port of your PC or hub. Then, why not a standard USB cable? Is it to protect the mount’s motherboard from voltage issues as I was told elsewhere? Thanks for your expertise, clear skies.
Thanks Jean, actually, I believe my USB port control board on my mount is bad? I could never get my laptop to recognize it. I had a UART cable from another project I had before and decided to try it instead and it worked right away so I’ve just been using it ever since. Either should work the same, but my first choice was to use the USB port. I’ve never heard of voltage issues with it, so not sure, but I know lots of people just use the USB port with no issues. As far as I know there’s no lack of functionality using the hand controller port as long as you use the correct UART chipped cable.
Hi Joe. Great video. A question about dark library. I normally use my PC with different rigs and, at the moment, I only have one guide camera (ASI120MM Mini) but I am looking for a second one. Can I have multiple dark libraries ath the same PC (for differenrt cameras)?
Thanks Bruno! You can have multiple dark libraries for multiple cameras. The easiest way is when you run the setup wizard for a new camera profile, just take your darks right away then, takes less than 10 minutes. Then PHD2 will use that dark library with that specific profile. You can also go into settings afterwards as well.
Great Video Joe ! Very informative. Where did you get your night sky tapestry from ? That's a great piece .
Thanks bloodstone! I ordered it on Amazon here's a link
amzn.to/348iE01
@@JoesAstrophoto Hey thanks for the link Joe! Ordered one just now.
Wait!! So raising the scale size doesn't make my guiding better??? But the graph looks so much better! ;) In all seriousness, great video Joe.. lots of good information here.
This weather has been terrible lately.. we've been down for weeks and there's no break in the long range forecast.
Thanks James! I think I'm partly to blame for the weather since I got the new scope, but wow it's been weeks now. Statistically speaking we should have had a t least one clear night by accident by now lol.
@@JoesAstrophoto Maybe we need to make a sacrifice to the sky gods. I have a broken asi120 i can kick in for the cause, lol.
@@DSOImager Hahaha! I have some old ZWO filters to go along with that.
Good video. I was wondering what are your thoughts on using ppec guide algorithm. I think u were using hysterisis
Thanks JC! So.....I've tried the PPEC algorithm in the past and saw an improvement in guiding when I wasn't using the PPEC in my mount. When using the PPEC in my mount and the PPEC algorithm in PHD2, I haven't noticed a huge improvement if any at all (could be due to seeing though, not enough data to be sure) and the PPEC algorithm in PHD2 has to start over again every time I slew the scope. A worm cycle in on the EQ6 is about 8 - 9 minutes and it needs at least two cycles. So at a meridian flip when the target is at it's best for imaging, I'm losing about 10 minutes of imaging time for the flip to occur, then another 18 minutes or so to reacquire good guiding.
That being said however, I'm still doing some testing, because the few times I've tried running both together I got some mixed results and I need a lot more data before I can make a definitive statement on which is better. I've done lots of research and also found mixed signals on this as well. To the best of my knowledge if you are using PPEC algorithm in PHD2 and PPEC in the mount or PEC in EQMOD, then you get periodic error correction in the mount and then PHD2 sees this as a better tracking mount and still can use it's PPEC algorithm to correct any further PE, but does so on the fly after at least 2 worm cycles. So the short answer is, I'm not sure if it's better or not but suspect it is if you don't mind losing the 18 minutes or so of subpar guiding while it learns the PEC.
Copy that. Thanks for the info. Ultimately sub 1 arcsec appears to be the key. Preferably under the main image scale. Thanks again
@@jcassidy5902 Oh another great point JC, try and keep the total error under your image scale! There is so much to keep in mind, I forgot to mention this in the video and that's really a good one as well.
Hi Joe,
Great info as always! Two questions. One related and one not.
1. Where did you source the dovetail mounted front weight seen in this video?
2. How high are the walls on your ROR and do you have any issues with them being too tall in any direction particularly the south ? I am designing mine now. Much to ponder 🤔 🤣.
Thanks Bruce! You can get them from OPT. I think they have both Losmandy and ADM brands. Mine is Losmandy, but only because it was in stock when ADM wasn’t. Both are great companies. I want to say my walls are 6’4” tall, but the height of the walls need to be proportional to the height of your pier/scope. Mine is at 20 degrees. Easy way to do this is to setup your scope as usual and measure height from the ground. Then take a step ladder and 2x4 and set that up as a Mach wall and measure the degrees you can see above the horizon. Hope that helps.
@@JoesAstrophoto Thanks Joe !!!
Hi there,
At about 15 minutes in you talk about aiming for not having a big discrepancy between the RMS errors for the RA and DEC. Then, a few minutes later when you do start guiding, the RA error is about 2/3 times larger than the DEC. Would you consider this difference on the larger side, and you would want to aim for less difference than that?
Secondly, are you using any sort of PEC during those few minutes of guiding towards the end of the video?
Hi Simon, when the RA was 40 and the DEC was 30, that’s ok, but for a while when the RA was 30 and the DEC was 11, that’s too much of a difference in my opinion. If the difference is too large for too long that sub will have elongated stars even if the total rms is below your pixel scale. I honestly don’t remember if I was running PEC when I made that recording as it was a year ago, but most likely. I’ve found that running PEC with hysteresis algorithm is better on the EQ6 and not running a PEC curve but using the predictive PEC algorithm is better for my CEM120. Predictive PEC with the EQ6 is better than just hysteresis algorithm if you aren’t going to be running a PEC curve though. Hope that helps.
For calibration, there was one point I was not clear about. I understand that calibration should be done near the celestial equator. But once you start guiding on your target, if you find the DEC and RMS errors are significantly different, then you would need to rerun calibration. Does that mean you need to slew back to the celestial equator? Do you ever calibrate on your target, or is it best to always calibrate near the celestial equator? Thank you.
Hi Claude, you always want to calibrate near the celestial equator. To make it more complicated I've read arguments for also being close to meridian while also pointing towards the celestial equator to decouple the RA and DEC from each other as well as read that 30 degrees or lower is better. I've tried both and haven't seen a significant difference. I've also read from the developers of PHD2 that you want to always make a slight North movement of your mount before starting calibration. If you are pointed away from the celestial equator, you usually get a warning from PHD2 telling you that your calibration will not be as effective. Hope that helps!
@@JoesAstrophoto Yes, that helps a ton! Thank you!
When they say to calibrate near the equator aren't they referring to the celestial equator? Even where I am located at 50 degrees north the celestial equator is at least 30 degrees above the horizon.
Yes, that’s absolutely correct, it’s about the same for me Around 30 - 35 degrees above the horizon to the south. DEC at zero or close as possible.
I use the ASIAIR pro, but when I build an observatory I will move up to laptop and phd2
Thanks Cap, so are you getting ready to build an obsy? Excited for you, it really changed the hobby for me.
asiair pro already uses phd2!
@@historybuffjb Thanks jb, I've never used an ASIAIR Pro but have been thinking about getting one for a portable rig I'm thinking of making. Can you tell me if you have the same control of PHD2 in that as you do on the pc version, that would be awesome!
@@JoesAstrophoto no you don't have as much control. it runs a slimmed down version. But it does now have multi-star guiding and works really well. I have never had a problem with it with my eq6r-pro usually around 0.5"-0.7" total guide error.
I really like the ASIAIR Pro abd the new multi star guiding is a nice addition. It has PHD2 lite, no where near the control like what you show in your vid, but it has been nice for me as a beginner. Less buttons to push and levers to flip. I really enjoy collecting data more than processing, cause I'm not good at it yet I guess but I'll get there.