paul Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 Did anyone have an unusually good night of guiding - my rms was better than 50% of what I typically get. I'm trying to decide if my surprising results are caused by seeing or my pre-session obsessive tweaking! Tonight is also forecast clear for me so I'll be selecting a new target in a different part of the sky, hoping for a repeat🤞 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave_S Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 I can't say that I noticed any difference Paul, and the Guiding Stats graph looked much the same as always, just the occasional 'blip' off track, pulled rapidly back on track by the guide software, so not seen in the image result. Theoretically, the two methods should be identical, both being Pulsed, but I get far more consistent results with the ST4 output of the guide camera (GPCAM 130) connected to the Guide Port on the HEQ5 Pro, compared to the non ST4 ASCOM Pulse method. I'm using the Full Frame guide option in Astroart 8, which is excellent. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul Posted February 25, 2022 Author Share Posted February 25, 2022 1 hour ago, Dave_S said: I can't say that I noticed any difference Paul, and the Guiding Stats graph looked much the same as always, just the occasional 'blip' off track, pulled rapidly back on track by the guide software, so not seen in the image result. Theoretically, the two methods should be identical, both being Pulsed, but I get far more consistent results with the ST4 output of the guide camera (GPCAM 130) connected to the Guide Port on the HEQ5 Pro, compared to the non ST4 ASCOM Pulse method. I'm using the Full Frame guide option in Astroart 8, which is excellent. Yes I had those blips, the wind was gusty. That's very encouraging, if true it will be real progress for me after about a year of struggles. I bit the bullet and did the full 3D balancing thing and various improvements like reseating the worm and to making the guider plate more rigid. I suspect the worm hadn't been set right in the past (my fault). I had excellent guiding performance with shorter OTAs but even though my biggest newt is well within the capacity, performance has been unpredictable. I suspect performance differences between ST4 and ASCOM will be mount specific. I use a GPCAM too with an HEQ5 but never noticed a difference between the methods. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave_S Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 Back in the day, when I was imaging with a 12" f/10 SCT on a wedge mounted fork mount, guiding was very critical, and I found that Maxim DL was the only software to handle it effectively, using the ST4 method. Astroart 8, has come a long way since V 3,4 & 5 that I used back then, and now handles the guiding perfectly, as well as the pre-processing (calibration, alignment, and stacking etc). For the price, it "punches well above its weight". Its guiding does seem to prefer ST4 for some reason, but I'm perfectly happy with that, as I "cut my astro imaging teeth" using ST4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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