Resolved Remote Guide Head

Discussion in 'Legacy Models - Community Support' started by Larry Phillips, Nov 15, 2020.

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  1. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    Attached is a pdf of a screen print showing a guide image from my ST-10 remote guider. This appearance has only recently been occurring. Is the guider going bad? If so can it be repaired?

    Larry
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Nov 15, 2020
    Larry Phillips, Nov 15, 2020
    #1
  2. JoeGafford

    JoeGafford Cyanogen Customer

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    Have you tried the "Clear autodark" button? With the screenshot, the temp controller seems to be in the "off" position. The SkyX really stretches the autoguider images. I sometimes get wacky images from either guider in the SkyX. Sometimes the clear autodark button works. Other times the reboot of the skyX program works.

    Joe
     
    JoeGafford, Nov 15, 2020
    #2
  3. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

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    We can't tell much from that.
    Please use [Upload a File] to send raw (unprocessed, no autodark) bias, dark, and light frame, in FITS format, binned 1x1, full guider chip, not a subframe, preferrably from CCDOps.
    Please include the camera serial number.

    Things to check (with the power OFF):
    Make sure the camera is on it's own USB connection directly to the back of the PC. No hubs, not sharing a port or USB bus with anything else.
    Is your PC really busy? There is no memory buffer for images in this good old camera, so they are read out row-by-row live as digitized, and any delays can result in brightness differences across rows.
    Check the RGH cable is well seated. You might unscrew it from both ends, and re-attach.
    There have been some reports of problems with TheSky X 10.5.0 12545 related to imaging and autodarks. If you are running an earlier release, you should be okay.

    Other possibilities:
    Radio Frequency Interference / Electro Magnetic Interference (RFI/EMI)
    - Is the camera on it's own power supply, cabling run neatly, not near motors or other electronics?
    - is there a Ferrite on the USB cable near the camera?
    - Are you using the ST-4 guider cable to the mount?
    Hardware failure
    - Lets get those FITS images first, made with CCDOps not TSX, so we can see what is going on.
    - What power supply are you using for the camera? If it is the original, and it is more tha 10 years old, the electrolytic capacitors may be starting to fail. @Bill has replacement power supplies.
    - Internal components in the camera could be failing. @Bill may be able to repair it.

    Windows upgrade
    - Did you recently update/upgrade the operating system? If so, check the Windows power management settings as described here:
    https://forum.diffractionlimited.co...connects-turn-off-usb-selective-suspend.7848/
     
    Colin Haig, Nov 16, 2020
    #3
  4. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    Joe, I tried your suggestions with no change. Colin, I am borrowing another guider to compare and will do that before proceeding and further. Thanks to both of you.

    Larry
     
    Larry Phillips, Nov 16, 2020
    #4
  5. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    It looks like the camera is ok as I used another one with the same results. So I have to figure out what has changed in my setup. Right now the one thing I know is I switched from an AP Mach1 mount using a standard Pyramid power supply to a Mach2 with encoders.using its own brick power supply. I did take a image using CCDOps with the mount not turned on and the image was fine. Also, despite the appearance of the image it still does a good job of guiding.

    Larry
     
    Larry Phillips, Nov 18, 2020
    #5
  6. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

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    Do you have a common electrical ground (eg 10 foot copper plated steel ground rod) that all your AC power supplies go to?
    Or are you running a portable setup off batteries?
     
    Colin Haig, Nov 18, 2020
    #6
  7. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    I am using power supplies that are grounded via the ac wiring into the house.
     
    Larry Phillips, Nov 18, 2020
    #7
  8. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    What is puzzling is the images from the main camera look ok and this is the remote guide head connected to the ST-10.
     
    Larry Phillips, Nov 18, 2020
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  9. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

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    Well I really can't offer any additional advice at this point.
    It would be helpful if you over some sample FITS images from the guider when you get a chance.
     
    Colin Haig, Nov 18, 2020
    #9
  10. Doug

    Doug Staff Member

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    I should mention that the electronics that run the remote guide head are located inside the ST-10. So if you swap remote heads you are not swapping the associated electronics.

    I can't tell from this whether there is a hardware problem with the camera. As Colin noted, we really can't even start to diagnose camera issues without FITS images.
     
    Doug, Nov 18, 2020
    #10
  11. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    I am thinking the issue is the way TheSky displays the image. This is the same ST-10 that we discussed several weeks ago and was sent to Bill for repair. I guess the next test is to install my filter wheel on my backup ST-10 and is if the problem still exists.
     
    Larry Phillips, Nov 19, 2020
    #11
  12. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

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    Larry, I hate to be a pest, but is there some reason you won't send us a FITS image from your guider?
    We've asked real nice...
    And it should take you like 5 minutes to do it.

    Also note that there have been a few reports of issues with TheSky X 10.5.0 12545, whereas people are ok with 12305. Might be worth asking Software Bisque too.
     
    Colin Haig, Nov 19, 2020
    #12
  13. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    I tried taking an image using CCDOps but it looked ok, I think because I only swapped the CCDs from main chip to guide chip and it took an image that wasn't a guide image so I thought it was useless. I needed to take the image with TheSkyX Camera Addon to duplicate the conditions and I hadn't figured out how to do that earlier. I think I have now. So earlier I didn't think I could provide anything useful. So I went about eliminating any other external cause. I will work on getting you a fits light, dark and bias today.
     
    Larry Phillips, Nov 19, 2020
    #13
  14. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    I forgot to say, I am using TheSky 12503. Should I go back to 12305, or was that a typo?
     
    Larry Phillips, Nov 19, 2020
    #14
  15. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

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    Typo. 503 is what I meant. 545 seems to be giving many people problems with filter wheels and other things; and not just with Diffraction's SBIG Cameras, but other makes / models from different manufacturers.
     
    Colin Haig, Nov 19, 2020
    #15
  16. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    Colin, here are the requested images. The first one is a guider light frame early on followed by a bias and flat. The others are from later in the night beginning with about 3 hours later, followed by one about 4 hours later again, followed by one at the end of the imaging run. As I said before, despite the image quality it still appears to guide ok.
     

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    Larry Phillips, Nov 20, 2020
    #16
  17. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    It appears the last two are subframes only.
     
    Larry Phillips, Nov 20, 2020
    #17
  18. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

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    I'd like @Bill to comment.
    Bill - am thinking the levels are high on the low end eg around 14000 instead of maybe 1000?
    Is this something you could remote in to Larry's camera and have a look at?
     
    Colin Haig, Nov 20, 2020
    #18
  19. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

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    Larry - to confirm it's just the guider that is like this, right?
     
    Colin Haig, Nov 20, 2020
    #19
  20. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

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    That is correct. And I have two of them and they behave the same way so it appears to me something in the main camera guider electronics is bad.
     
    Larry Phillips, Nov 20, 2020
    #20
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