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I've been having a horrible time getting my mount to guide on planets. I've been using Firecapture and a USB cable from my laptop to my hand controller. ASCOM and the mount work fine but when I try to guide the planet moves out of the fov.
I was having the exact same problem using the ST4 port from camera to mount. A few people told me to ditch the ST4 cable and go with the USB but that doesn't seem to help much.
I've changed setting after setting to no avail.
Does the camera have to be aligned in some certain way? I see NSEW on the buttons in FC and ASCOM but how does that correspond to the telescope?
Thank you for your help!
I guess my first question is, why do you think you need to guide for planetary imaging? I've been planetary imaging for 7 years now and have never guided my telescope. The tracking has always been good enough even on an ALT AZ mount that tracking is never needed. Even when imaging at 5600 mm.
Not sure about your mount, but I know some have 3 settings for tracking. Sidreal, Solar and Planetary. Guiding programs like PHD2 have a setting in the setup for YOUR mount usually set to sidreal... But I'm with JayTee why? Most often the planet FOV is bright, possibly too bright for your Guide camera not to be washed out rendering it useless!
Poor alignment and running at 10+ meters fl can results of Planets drifting out of view pretty quickly , especially becomes a bit annoying if you are imaging planets all night or want an automation setup. Fire capture does do guiding from my. Experience reasonable, I need to tune the settings a bit more, you should work on your polar alignment a bit if you havn't done so. You don't need a guide scope or a secondary camera for planet guiding with fire capture
scopes :gso/bintel f4 12"truss tube, bresser messier ar127s /skywatcher 10'' dob,meade 12'' f10 lx200 sct
cameras : asi 1600mm-c/asi1600mm-c,asi120mc,prostar lp guidecam, nikkon d60, sony a7,asi 290 mm
mounts : eq6 pro/eq8/mesu 200 v2
filters : 2'' astronomik lp/badder lrgb h-a,sII,oIII,h-b,Baader Solar Continuum, chroma 3nm ha,sii,oiii,nii,rgb,lowglow,uv/ir,Thousand Oaks Solar Filter,1.25'' #47 violet,pro planet 742 ir,pro planet 807 ir,pro planet 642 bp ir.
extras : skywatcher f4 aplanatic cc, Baader MPCC MKIII Coma Corrector,Orion Field Flattener,zwo 1.25''adc.starlight maxi 2" 9x filter wheel,tele vue 2x barlow .
JayTee wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 5:40 am
I guess my first question is, why do you think you need to guide for planetary imaging? I've been planetary imaging for 7 years now and have never guided my telescope. The tracking has always been good enough even on an ALT AZ mount that tracking is never needed. Even when imaging at 5600 mm.
Cheers,
JT
Well the main reason I want to do it is because I cannot see Polaris from my backyard. I haven't had good results with drift alignment. I was hoping I could utilize this feature in FireCapture instead of spending an hour or more trying to get polar aligned only to have it not work out. I've read multiple sources stating there is no need for polar alignment to use this method in FC.
My question is, does the camera need to be installed in a certain direction to correspond with the directional keys. I think so but I don't know what the right direction is. Is NSEW when the telescope is pointed directly up?
Okay, I just watched a tutorial on this feature and I understand what is going on now.
My first question to you is, do you plan on staying out with your scope while it is imaging? When I'm taking planetary video I never leave my scope, mainly because I'm always tweaking the focus (even while shooting the video). So if you plan on staying out with your scope while imaging, then this feature is completely unnecessary. It is okay to use your HC to slew (slowly) your mount while taking a video. The planetary video processing software can handle your object (the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn) dancing around the FOV, which also includes drift caused by not being perfectly polar aligned. Just take the time to see in which direction the drift moves within the FOV and figure out ahead of time which HC buttons will counteract this motion. Once you've got that figured out you can do this and you don't have to keep the object perfectly in the center of the FOV. So, don't worry about this autoguide stuff if you plan on remaining with your scope while imagining. Since your image may be all over the FOV you will definitely want to use PIPP (free software) as your first step in your processing routine.
we need to help you with drift alighnment for best results on an eq mount, auto guiding on fire capture can only correct a small ammount . it might be a different story if you are in alt az mode and alighned. all i can say there is some delay in corrections, the fewer needed the better.
Last edited by yobbo89 on Tue Aug 04, 2020 1:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
scopes :gso/bintel f4 12"truss tube, bresser messier ar127s /skywatcher 10'' dob,meade 12'' f10 lx200 sct
cameras : asi 1600mm-c/asi1600mm-c,asi120mc,prostar lp guidecam, nikkon d60, sony a7,asi 290 mm
mounts : eq6 pro/eq8/mesu 200 v2
filters : 2'' astronomik lp/badder lrgb h-a,sII,oIII,h-b,Baader Solar Continuum, chroma 3nm ha,sii,oiii,nii,rgb,lowglow,uv/ir,Thousand Oaks Solar Filter,1.25'' #47 violet,pro planet 742 ir,pro planet 807 ir,pro planet 642 bp ir.
extras : skywatcher f4 aplanatic cc, Baader MPCC MKIII Coma Corrector,Orion Field Flattener,zwo 1.25''adc.starlight maxi 2" 9x filter wheel,tele vue 2x barlow .
I do leave the telescope to come inside sometimes.
So it doesn't matter how the camera is inserted? It could be completely upside down and it's the same?
The direction arrows on the screen are only for that screen and do not correspond to the actual compass directions. So if I correctly understand the video, you can insert your camera in any orientation you want and the autoguiding should still work. All it's doing is looking at the image on the screen and if it goes to the lower left corner it knows it has to use the right and up arrows to get the planet back into the center. I hope that made sense.