Time/Date
03072023T1800:
People
Shrey, Roy, Onkar, Connor
Spaces Occupied
401, 433C
Goals
- Test Autoguiding option 2 & 3 mentioned in previous(enter exact date) blog post
- Look at stuff
Log
- Opened the dome at 18:10
- Connected the finder scope camera through the LBD2 cable and switched it on using the network outlet
- Attached the ZWO Color camera with the filter wheel on-axis through the Icron extender box
- should be noted visible filter was unscrewed from the filter wheel assembly due to the adapter being stuck
- connected dc to asi178mm via USB cable in control room
- connected st4 to asi178mm
- Connected the pins from the ST4 cable to the Autoguider pins on the TCS BackPanel in the following way:
- Blue = Unused
- Yellow = GND → Pin 6
- Green = West → Pin 4
- Red = South → Pin 2
- Black = North → Pin 1
- White = East → Pin 3
- Connected PHD2 → Guide → Connect Equipment and connected ASI Telescope ST4 Driver (ASCOM) in Mount
- Connected PHD2 → Guide → Connect Equipment and connected ASI482MC in camera
- attempted to view capella
- finder scope see nothing (completely black), static on on-axis
- receiving error about USBst4 drivers "an error occurred while trying to connect to your zwo usbst4 mount"
- unplugged and plugged back in telescope cameras, still nothing
- unplugged usb from asi178mm to dc, finder scope suddenly works
- slewed to capella again, no vis on-axis
- slewed to moon
- took some purdy pictures
- verified spotter and color cameras are working
- driver woes
- attempting to download the zwo usbst4 mount drivers
- reconnected asi178mm in control room, st4 connection still there
- downloading and installing "ASIStudio Windows X64" and "ZWO ASCOM" onto DC
- now getting filter wheel errors as well as the same errors from before
- disconnecting filter wheel from icron extender, going to figure this out later -onkar
- slewed to moon
- verified cameras working
- focus slightly off for onaxis but whatever
- slewing to capella
- nailed it
- took some pics
- attempting autoguding
- autoguiding attempt2
- connor takes helm
- started phd2
- connected to color camera
- connected to mount
- asi178mm connected back to dc, st4 side connected to ag port
- clicked on circle arrows button to begin looping, taking two second exposures
- tara and nat join
- disconnected color camera in sharpcapp
- switched to aux track to sim bad tracking
- undo that
- changed to 1-second exposure on phd2
- phd2 auto-detected capella, yay
- attempted movement, phd2 yelled at us, told us to calibrate at -20 to +20 dec
- clicked "ok" and attempted anyway
- went to tcs->telescope->rates-handpaddle rates->guide rate
- changed from 5 to 100 arcsec/sec
- attempting again
- TOO FAST
- changing guide rate in tcs to 10
- third attempt
- too slow
- changed to 25
- fourth attempt
- still too slow
- changed to 50
- fifth attempt
- still too slow
- going calibrate and stop being dumb
- calibration time
- slewed to sirius
- RA/DEC
06h
46m
10.2s
-16°
45'
02.3" - refocused to 2274.3
- reconnected camera to phd2, having trouble following star still at 0.01seconds
- consulting manual: https://openphdguiding.org/PHD2_User_Guide.pdf
- reset guide rate to 5, going to let it calibrate properly
- "it needs to see how fast the scope moves when it sends pulses" -connor
- attempting calibration
- changed guide rate to 1 arcsec/sec
- clicked on "guiding button" the one that looks like a radar
- green crosshairs, random flashing red every now and then
- says "guiding" so WORKING????
ToDo
Notes
Overall connections
- ASI482mm → icron USB extender → data computer → USB3.0 cable → ASI178mm → st4 cable → each color to alligator clip → respective alligator clip to autoguide port