Hi guys,
Last night, I had a problem where the guider never settled and acquisition never started.
I have an STT-8300 with internal guider and use the SGP API to guide using PHD2. I have been using, with good success, settling settings of <0.5 pixels, option to "settle for" ticked and 6 seconds selected... I often use 4 second guide exposures.
Before last night my settling appeared to worked like this:
1) PHD would report distance away from being centered after each guiding frame (I often use 0.5 pixels)... this distance generally gets smaller with each report as it heads toward the threshold.
2) Once the threshold was reached, a countdown would start in the message bar reflecting how long the distance was below the threshold... I assume this is an SGP timer
3) If the countdown completed, the message bar showed a message "waiting for guider to report it has settled"
4) image acquisition would start
Last night:
1) same as above
2) Upon reaching threshold, nothing happened. Distances less than the threshold were continuously reported, but no countdown started and acquisition never started
I believe that I saw this behavior in all the versions listed below.
Unfortunately, my logs are something of a mishmash as I tried different combinations... I started off with 2.5.2.4. When I had a problem with that, I tried to upgrade to 2.5.2.5. Still no joy. Then I went back to 2.5.2.3 which I had successfully used on a number of nights. I was surprised to see that didn't work either.
Ultimately, in my late night delirium, I got a sequence to run. Unfortunately, I cannot identify what combination of reinstalls, reboots, power cycles and version changes enabled success, but the successful versions were SGP2.5.2.5 and PHD2.6.2. I also turned off the "settle time" tick box and typed "0" into the seconds field.
I suppose this might be peculiar to my setup, but since it seems like some of the recent betas were related to the SGP API, I wanted to report this in case it is helpful. I was also hoping someone might be able to take a look at the logs and see if they could help me figure what is going on.
Rather than include all the logs I have attached two, the last run that would not settle (which was 2.5.2.3) and the log from the successful run which was 2.5.2.5. If I can help further, I am happy to do that. I can also provide PHD2 logs, if helpful, but it seems like PHD is happily sending distances through all this, and maybe never gets asked to do anything else?
Best regards, and thanks!
Craig
Version info:
OS: Win 10 Pro Anniversary Update
SGP: 2.5.2.3, 2.5.2.4, 2.5.2.5
PHD 2.6.2, 2.6.2dev4
Last Run with no Settling
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dvmsh0h9o5pefnl/sg_logfile_20161024003111.txt?dl=0
Successful run
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dvmsh0h9o5pefnl/sg_logfile_20161024003111.txt?dl=0