Question NINA - guiding issues

Hi!

Last night I ran into a guiding issue with NINA (using all the latest software, i.e. NINA nightly v2 #49, PHD2, ASCOM, latest StarGO). At first I had problems calibrating PHD2. RA and DEC were not orthogonal. But after another calibration this problem vanished.

However, dithering during a sequence caused problems. It looks like the mount (Muno) takes a long time to settle and PHD2 (or NINA) runs into a time out.

I am using a ASI 1600 MM Pro @274mm (61edph) and ASI290 guidecam @130 guide scope.

Did anyone have the same problem or know of any solution?

Thanks and clear skies
Stephan

Hi Stephan,

Depending on seeing or general guiding performance it may just take a while until the tolerance is reached again after dither. There are some settings available in NINA once you are connected to PHD2. If you reduce the amount of dither pixels or if you increase the settle timeout you will most likely be able to avoid that timeout error. There is even an option to set the 'Settle pixel tolerance'. PHD2 reports to NINA when the mount has reached that tolerance again. So you could also increase it, but may be the other parameters are better to tweak.

BTW, I'm also always fiddling with my PHD2 parameters. During my last session, I had a total RMS error of 1.36" (or 0.33 px) over a period of 3h42m I'm using an m-zero mount and slightly extrapolated the recommended PHD2 settings given by Avalon (my guide scope has 188mm focal length but the table stops at 250mm or so)

I really would be interested to hear what guide performance other users are achieving and what their parameters are!

Regards,
Stephan