Saturday, May 28, 2022

Revised Startup for APT/Stellarium/PHD2 et al.

I've updated all the software I use for image acquisition: APT, PHD2, Stellarium, and ASCOM. 

All the updating went without problems, so Yay!

However, my old way of starting all these in order of APT first, then Stellarium, and finally PHD2 seems to not work well any more. What seems to happen is that APT and Stellarium can't work through ASCOM correctly, and APT sometimes launches an instance of PHD2 out of impatience?

Some experimenting was needed, and the result is that the order of starting now goes like this:

  1. Power the mount and allow time for it to boot. My Gemini 2 takes a couple of seconds, most others are probably faster
  2. Power up everything else and insure it's all running and has made its USB connections.
  3. Start Stellarium and let it connect to the mount (if all is good it should correctly show the direction in which scope is pointing)
  4. Start PHD2 and connect it to the guide camera and mount
  5. Start APT and connect it to the camera
  6. Start the camera cooling via APT
  7. Connect APT to the mount
  8. At this point use PoleMaster to do a polar align using the ASCOM hand control, finishing with the scope in its park position (counterweight-down and approximately targeting the NCP)
  9. Re-aim the scope far away from the NCP and train PHD2. You can delay this step until after you have pointed the scope at your target.
  10. Sync the mount using APT's Point Craft (I use ASTAP for plate solving---it's amazingly fast and almost never fails to solve!
  11. Use either Stellarium or APT's Go-To to acquire your imaging target. Do whatever composing you want.
  12. Start PHD2 guiding or let APT handle things. 
  13. Make sure your focus is perfect and start your exposure plan

Basically: power up, start the helper apps, start APT, start camera cooling, do polar align, sync the mount, acquire target, train PHD2, start imaging. If you're using autofocus, insert its setup where appropriate.

Worth noting is that the use of Stellarium (or any planetarium program) is entirely optional. APT provides extensive object lists and has similar Go-To and Sync features---everything you need to image.


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