APT Dropping out of track mode

[jrm_astro]

Hello All,

Looking for some help wth APT.
After a plate solve and beginning guiding all goes along well.
APT will drop out of track mode and my stars fly off the page and guiding fails.
Is there a way I can make sure APT will stay in track mode? Is this caused by something I have done? Bad PA etc?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[bobharmony]

Interesting... does PHD2 report anything out of the ordinary when this is happening? More information about your setup and how you are guiding might be helpful.

It sounds like the mount tracking is stopping when this occurs, can you confirm?

Bob

[jrm_astro]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the reply. PHD guiding will quickly run into an error (can not make corrections). Like you said I think the mount tracking stops.
I use ASCOM to connect the mount to the computer, in PHD2 I use 'On mount' as I have had no luck using an ASCOM profile in PHD.
All my hardware is listed in my signature.

Cheers

[JayTee]

The HEQ5 ASCOM specific software/drivers have a pretty long history of working well with PHD2.

I think you would get a usable answer if you posted this issue to the Open PHD Guiding Google group. As part of your post make sure you include your guide log and the debug log for the time period where the issue occurs.

Cheers,
JT

[Graeme1858]

The Open PHD Google Group people are really helpful. If you haven't been there before, you can find them here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum ... hd-guiding

Regards

Graeme

[jrm_astro]

Thanks guys. I have tried the group. I went in circles for a month or so and eventually gave up.
I don't even know if it is a PHD problem. When I do my old star align routine and use the on camera profile I get pretty good results.
It's only when I connect through EQMOD/APT that I seem to have problems.
I have been trying different solutions since January.

Cheers

[jrm_astro]

Right. After another attempt last night I have a new hypothesis. I tried the whole process with the NINA software. I certainly am no expert on this program as I downloaded it and learned it only for this process. Anyway, I got everything connected, platesolved and began guiding.
Pretty quickly I encountered the same problem. The NINA software dropped out of track mode and guiding went to poop.
So, I'm starting to think perhaps EQMOD/ASCOM is kicking the programs out of track mode. When all is going well, EQMOD shows that sidereal tracking is active, and then it drops out to No Tracking and APT/NINA track mode turns off. Is this possibly an EQMOD thing?

Cheers