Can't believe i am just now finding this channel. So much good stuff here, and I am gonna learn a lot. Hoping this year is gonna be a great year for me to add a lot of planetary stuff to my channel and u\learn a lot more about deep sky stuff. Would love to add deep sky stuff to my channel, but i honextly am lacking in skill in that department.
your welcome. I have a feeling i will be spending a lot of time here coming soon. If ya get a chnce check out some of my planet stuff. Currently using 8 inch newts and a c9.25 but I just bought a 12 I should be up and going with as soon as weather is better.
Thank you. I am headed to West Texas to visit McDonald Observatory in a couple days so that will be taking my time, but I see a lot of stuff on your channel that is gonna halp my deep sky captures. Thank you for the time doing all this.
Hey Chuck I came across this video because I have that same problem about the com port issue. But when I tried to find which port it belonged too I couldn't. So I pull up device manager and it showed that it was assigned to com 8 so I put on 8 and tried all the ports with no success. Do you have any ideas?!! Please help if you can.
I do it a little definitely as I carried over my setup from my other mount (cg5) onto the avx and that I use a GPUSB and I haven't had a problem with it
I can guide right through the meridian with no issues, but I am surprised how horrible my guiding is when it goes too low. So the AVX doesn't have this issue? I don't recall guiding this low with my old AVX before.
Hi, I'm also using PHD2, but I have a question about dithering. How does PHD2 know when to dither? I mean how does PHD2 know when to move the mount a few pixels? How does it know when my exposure is done?
Hey Chuck awesome channel! Couple simple questions. I am in the process of setting up SGP and you stated you no longer select 'in-camera' since you use the ASCOM driver. 1) Does that mean you can get rid of the telephone cable from the Autoguide camera to mount? 2) I have a my Sirius mount connected to the Skyview hand controller and then connected to the computer via the USB-to-serial adapter. Is this OK?
Thanks. Yes - you can get rid of the telephone cable if you are using ASCOM. I don't have a Sirius mount, but what you described is how I have my Celestron connected - except my mount no longer uses a serial adapter, just a USB cable going straight from the handset to the laptop.
Thanks for returning my questions so quickly Chuck. I will most likely be watching your other videos over and over. Thanks for posting them. Cheers Kurt
Hey Chuck! I also have a CGX mount and trying to get my mount connected to PHD2. I am dealing with the port issue you discussed. Was this a windows, ascom, or PHD based issue? I keep getting an error saying port 4 not found. I need to change my port but I’m not sure where that’s done? I only see 1 port option in PHD2. Thanks man. I’m slowly getting there
Did you see in this video where I show where you can set the port in SGP. I do it here first, and PHD2 uses that. ruclips.net/video/l3o8c10TCZQ/видео.html
can a finderscope be used as a guiderscope by replacing the eyepiece with a guidercamera (which then connects via ethernet-cable to the mount, and via usb-cable to the computer running PHD2)?
Chuck maybe this is a stupid question but... do you align (star alignment ) the mount before using phd2? Or you do polar alignment then choose an object to photograph and choose a nearby star to guide? I’m struggling here with these simple steps. Thanks.
Here is the order I go in: 1. Polar Alignment (with the Pole Master) ==> 2. One Star Alignment (just to start my mount tracking) ==>3. Plate Solve (which finds my target and then automatically launches PHD2 and automatically finds a guide star). And that's it - I'm imaging.
Glad to hear it! No, I don't recall any improvement in guiding performance, but the big benefit is guiding now knows where the mount is pointing. So switching to different parts of the sky or meridian flips no longer need a PHD2 re-calibration.
Hi Chuck, thx for the info! You mentioned that SGP would do all work automatically with Phd2. Is this configurable with phd2, or SGP? By the way, I've been using "on camera" connection with Phd2, I hace a Celestron CGEM mount. It works fine, but many people say ascom drivers work better! I think I'll try those, do you think it would improve my guiding?
When I switched to ASCOM, I don't recall an improvement in guiding. For me the benefit was that I didn't have re-calibrate PHD2 when the telescope moved to a different part of the sky or flipped the meridian. In fact, I haven't re-calibrated PHD2 in a few weeks. As for SGP, when I start a sequence in SGP, it automatically launches PHD2, tells PHD2 to automatically find a guide star and start guiding. Those settings are in SGP.
I noticed that when selecting mount drivers, you selected "on camera" when having the old serial cable. I do have it with my cgem mount, so this means that I would not be able to use the ascom drivers without having the new USB cable that comes with the new handsets?
My RMS error almost doubles sometimes (to 1.20 on average) if II am guiding too low. My stars take on a weird shape in my imaging camera as well - not only stretched, but they sort of look like a pizza with one piece missing. Flextue in the image train could also play a part in that (sagging).
Lights and it's just eck 30-35 degrees and below I noticed that guiding is poopy at that altitude but it's magic when it hits that marker....another thing I've noticed guiding goes out of whack when you hit the meridian
I have a Celestron CGEM DX mount but in the connect window on PHD 2 I do not see this mount. I tried using Generic Hub (ASCOM) and it appears to connect but I can't get manual guiding to work (don't think mount is receiving guidance from PHD 2). Could you tell me what driver I need to download? Thanks in advance for any help!
Thanks. I just did. Unfortunately, it is snowing heavily tonight so I can't test this until next semi-clear night. I assume this will make a big difference. I will report when I get clear skies and thanks again.
OK, I have a clear night and I had downloaded the Celestron Mount driver from the ASCOM website. However, when I select Celestron Telescope Driver (ASCOM) from the connection menu, it temporarily brings up a small window that says Connecting to Mount but then this results in a failure message saying something like "Connection failed. No mount detected on COM1 and no Celestron mount detected." I went to try to change the COM number like you showed but there was no option to change it (the small dropdown box under COM is blank and uneditable). So I tried to connect the USB cable that goes into my ccd camera to all 3 USB ports and try each one separately. No joy. As an alternative, I selected ON Camera from the connection list and this connects. However, I don't think that the signals sent to the mount are being received as I can't get scope to move using Manual Guiding mode nor do the apparent correction signals on graph seem to have any effect. To be clear, the USB cable coming from my laptop goes into the CCD camera, then a phoneline runs out of camera to Autoguide port on my Celestron mount. I was abit confused by what alternatives I have. Is there a way to run a USB cable, as you described, from laptop to where? Thanks again for any/all your help!
In your video, you say that your handset is connected directly to your laptop. Is the handset the one that came with the Celestron telescope? If so, the cable connecting from your laptop connects where on the handset? If not, what handset do you mean? I looked on my hand-controller that came with Celestron CGEX DX mount and there is another input that looks like a phone line input on bottom. Sorry if these questions are too basic.
where did you download that ascom driver from and it say's Celestron telescope driver, do it have to have or use aCelestron telescope or is that just what they call it?
Please SUBSCRIBE to this RUclips Channel for all things related to deep sky exploration and imaging, thanks!
Chuck I got 0.40" RMS guiding using your settings. Following guiding assistant made my guiding progressively worse. Thank you!!
Woah! Tried your settings on my CGX - never seen so many spikes in my life :)
Pretty simple and straightforward as well as a comment on poorer guiding with lower declinations.
Thanks Dan
Much appreciated Chuck. One of my laptops developed issues which created problems with PhD2 as well as EQMod/EQAscom.
Can't believe i am just now finding this channel. So much good stuff here, and I am gonna learn a lot. Hoping this year is gonna be a great year for me to add a lot of planetary stuff to my channel and u\learn a lot more about deep sky stuff. Would love to add deep sky stuff to my channel, but i honextly am lacking in skill in that department.
Thanks Charlie!
your welcome. I have a feeling i will be spending a lot of time here coming soon. If ya get a chnce check out some of my planet stuff. Currently using 8 inch newts and a c9.25 but I just bought a 12 I should be up and going with as soon as weather is better.
I will, I just subscribed to your channel.
Thank you. I am headed to West Texas to visit McDonald Observatory in a couple days so that will be taking my time, but I see a lot of stuff on your channel that is gonna halp my deep sky captures. Thank you for the time doing all this.
Thanks Chuck! This really helped me setup my new CGX with PHD 👍
Glad to hear it.
Hey Chuck, question from new astro photography people. Do you still polar align before using this software? Many thanks.
Hey Chuck I came across this video because I have that same problem about the com port issue. But when I tried to find which port it belonged too I couldn't. So I pull up device manager and it showed that it was assigned to com 8 so I put on 8 and tried all the ports with no success. Do you have any ideas?!! Please help if you can.
I do it a little definitely as I carried over my setup from my other mount (cg5) onto the avx and that I use a GPUSB and I haven't had a problem with it
I can guide right through the meridian with no issues, but I am surprised how horrible my guiding is when it goes too low. So the AVX doesn't have this issue? I don't recall guiding this low with my old AVX before.
Hi, I'm also using PHD2, but I have a question about dithering. How does PHD2 know when to dither? I mean how does PHD2 know when to move the mount a few pixels? How does it know when my exposure is done?
It's a setting in Sequence Generator Pro that communicates with PHD2 under the AutoGuide tab.
Hey Chuck awesome channel! Couple simple questions. I am in the process of setting up SGP and you stated you no longer select 'in-camera' since you use the ASCOM driver. 1) Does that mean you can get rid of the telephone cable from the Autoguide camera to mount? 2) I have a my Sirius mount connected to the Skyview hand controller and then connected to the computer via the USB-to-serial adapter. Is this OK?
Thanks. Yes - you can get rid of the telephone cable if you are using ASCOM. I don't have a Sirius mount, but what you described is how I have my Celestron connected - except my mount no longer uses a serial adapter, just a USB cable going straight from the handset to the laptop.
Thanks for returning my questions so quickly Chuck. I will most likely be watching your other videos over and over. Thanks for posting them. Cheers Kurt
No prob, good luck!
Hey Chuck! I also have a CGX mount and trying to get my mount connected to PHD2. I am dealing with the port issue you discussed. Was this a windows, ascom, or PHD based issue? I keep getting an error saying port 4 not found. I need to change my port but I’m not sure where that’s done? I only see 1 port option in PHD2. Thanks man. I’m slowly getting there
Did you see in this video where I show where you can set the port in SGP. I do it here first, and PHD2 uses that. ruclips.net/video/l3o8c10TCZQ/видео.html
Chuck's Astrophotography I must have missed that one Chuck. That’s what I’m looking for. Thanks man!
can a finderscope be used as a guiderscope by replacing the eyepiece with a guidercamera (which then connects via ethernet-cable to the mount, and via usb-cable to the computer running PHD2)?
Finder scopes don't usually have much focal length if any to keep up with the imaging scope and may not be able to detect tracking errors fast enough.
@@ChucksAstrophotography thx. which guiderscope would you recommend for the Celestron CGEM mount?
Hi Chuck. Your MnMo settings are really low. Default settings are 0.30, but if they work for you that's all that matters.
Chuck maybe this is a stupid question but... do you align (star alignment ) the mount before using phd2? Or you do polar alignment then choose an object to photograph and choose a nearby star to guide? I’m struggling here with these simple steps. Thanks.
Here is the order I go in: 1. Polar Alignment (with the Pole Master) ==> 2. One Star Alignment (just to start my mount tracking) ==>3. Plate Solve (which finds my target and then automatically launches PHD2 and automatically finds a guide star). And that's it - I'm imaging.
Thanks Chuck, will see how it works
@@STUDIOAE You're welcome,
@@STUDIOAE I use SG Pro for plate solvomg. Here is a video on how to set it up: ruclips.net/video/vaXLFvHpbwA/видео.html
Hi Chuck, do you connect to the Net Star + hand controller or the PC port on the CGX mount?
Do it from the Hand Controller to the PC. I also tried the mount, but it wouldn't work that way.
Thanks Chuck. Your videos are awesome! :D
Hi chuck, did you notice any improvement when switching from st4 to pulse guiding? Thanks again for all the videos. You have taught me a lot!
Glad to hear it! No, I don't recall any improvement in guiding performance, but the big benefit is guiding now knows where the mount is pointing. So switching to different parts of the sky or meridian flips no longer need a PHD2 re-calibration.
Chuck's Astrophotography Thank you very much. I just eliminated another cable thanks to you.
Awesome!
@vincent stewart either through the hand controller or with a cable that takes it’s place. You really don’t need a HC if your using a laptop.
Hi Chuck, thx for the info! You mentioned that SGP would do all work automatically with Phd2. Is this configurable with phd2, or SGP?
By the way, I've been using "on camera" connection with Phd2, I hace a Celestron CGEM mount. It works fine, but many people say ascom drivers work better! I think I'll try those, do you think it would improve my guiding?
When I switched to ASCOM, I don't recall an improvement in guiding. For me the benefit was that I didn't have re-calibrate PHD2 when the telescope moved to a different part of the sky or flipped the meridian. In fact, I haven't re-calibrated PHD2 in a few weeks. As for SGP, when I start a sequence in SGP, it automatically launches PHD2, tells PHD2 to automatically find a guide star and start guiding. Those settings are in SGP.
Chuck's Astrophotography thanks for the quick response, I'll have a look at the guiding settings on SGP.
I noticed that when selecting mount drivers, you selected "on camera" when having the old serial cable. I do have it with my cgem mount, so this means that I would not be able to use the ascom drivers without having the new USB cable that comes with the new handsets?
Good question, I switched to USB and ASCOM at the same time so I'm not sure if USB is required or not, never tried ASCOM with the serial connection.
Chuck's Astrophotography thanks Chuck, I'll give it a try then! ☺️
Chuck, to what extent does atmospheric disturbance affect your guiding at below 35 degrees. I personally do not image below 30 degrees.
My RMS error almost doubles sometimes (to 1.20 on average) if II am guiding too low. My stars take on a weird shape in my imaging camera as well - not only stretched, but they sort of look like a pizza with one piece missing. Flextue in the image train could also play a part in that (sagging).
Yes ,sagging affects us all at some time...
Oh ok, I wasn't sure if I should replace my focuser. I will keep it and just be sure to target objects that are higher.
Lights and it's just eck 30-35 degrees and below I noticed that guiding is poopy at that altitude but it's magic when it hits that marker....another thing I've noticed guiding goes out of whack when you hit the meridian
Sorry my english sense of humour regarding the sagging
Will this work in intel Celeron laptop?
Thanks Chuck.
I have a Celestron CGEM DX mount but in the connect window on PHD 2 I do not see this mount. I tried using Generic Hub (ASCOM) and it appears to connect but I can't get manual guiding to work (don't think mount is receiving guidance from PHD 2).
Could you tell me what driver I need to download? Thanks in advance for any help!
Did you download the Celestron Mount Driver from the ASCOM website?
Thanks. I just did. Unfortunately, it is snowing heavily tonight so I can't test this until next semi-clear night.
I assume this will make a big difference. I will report when I get clear skies and thanks again.
OK, I have a clear night and I had downloaded the Celestron Mount driver from the ASCOM website. However, when I select Celestron Telescope Driver (ASCOM) from the connection menu, it temporarily brings up a small window that says Connecting to Mount but then this results in a failure message saying something like "Connection failed. No mount detected on COM1 and no Celestron mount detected." I went to try to change the COM number like you showed but there was no option to change it (the small dropdown box under COM is blank and uneditable). So I tried to connect the USB cable that goes into my ccd camera to all 3 USB ports and try each one separately. No joy.
As an alternative, I selected ON Camera from the connection list and this connects. However, I don't think that the signals sent to the mount are being received as I can't get scope to move using Manual Guiding mode nor do the apparent correction signals on graph seem to have any effect.
To be clear, the USB cable coming from my laptop goes into the CCD camera, then a phoneline runs out of camera to Autoguide port on my Celestron mount. I was abit confused by what alternatives I have. Is there a way to run a USB cable, as you described, from laptop to where?
Thanks again for any/all your help!
In your video, you say that your handset is connected directly to your laptop. Is the handset the one that came with the Celestron telescope? If so, the cable connecting from your laptop connects where on the handset? If not, what handset do you mean? I looked on my hand-controller that came with Celestron CGEX DX mount and there is another input that looks like a phone line input on bottom. Sorry if these questions are too basic.
I got it to work via hooking RS232 cable to USB adapter then installing driver for that adapter!
What about the cable setup?
Poor tracking at low points will be caused by atmospheric aberration.
Good to know, thanks.
where did you download that ascom driver from and it say's Celestron telescope driver, do it have to have or use aCelestron telescope or is that just what they call it?
This page has drivers for a bunch of different telescopes, including Celestron: www.ascom-standards.org/Downloads/ScopeDrivers.htm
will it work with a explorer scientific
SPACEDOG'S MOUNTAIN BIKING I thought you have a CGX mount?
I do with a explorer scientific telescope that's why I'm confused when it said Celestron telescope drivers
PHD2 doesn't care about your imaging scope. You only setup your mount and the focal length of your guide scope and pixel size of your guide camera.
thanks again
Hello chuck! Are you still using Version 6.2.6 on PHD? Thanks
Good question, I'm not sure. But the next time I boot up my laptop, I will check.
Chuck's Astrophotography I have PHD2 guiding version 2.6.4dev10... I think some of settings are different on the new version... thanks again
Je cherche une vidéo en français. Je trouve une vidéo avec un titre et un résumé en français, je clique sur la vidéo : elle est en anglais.
Completamente sfocato! Non si vede nulla!