Resolved Remote Guide Head

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

  1. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    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
  2. JoeGafford

    JoeGafford Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Feb 22, 2016
    Messages:
    29
    Location:
    Denver, CO
    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
     
  3. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2014
    Messages:
    7,379
    Location:
    Earth
    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/
     
  4. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    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
     
  5. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    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
     
  6. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2014
    Messages:
    7,379
    Location:
    Earth
    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?
     
  7. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    I am using power supplies that are grounded via the ac wiring into the house.
     
  8. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    What is puzzling is the images from the main camera look ok and this is the remote guide head connected to the ST-10.
     
  9. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2014
    Messages:
    7,379
    Location:
    Earth
    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.
     
  10. Doug

    Doug Staff Member

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2014
    Messages:
    9,934
    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.
     
  11. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    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.
     
  12. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2014
    Messages:
    7,379
    Location:
    Earth
    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.
     
  13. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    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.
     
  14. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    I forgot to say, I am using TheSky 12503. Should I go back to 12305, or was that a typo?
     
  15. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2014
    Messages:
    7,379
    Location:
    Earth
    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.
     
  16. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    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.
     

    Attached Files:

  17. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    It appears the last two are subframes only.
     
  18. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2014
    Messages:
    7,379
    Location:
    Earth
    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?
     
  19. Colin Haig

    Colin Haig Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2014
    Messages:
    7,379
    Location:
    Earth
    Larry - to confirm it's just the guider that is like this, right?
     
  20. Larry Phillips

    Larry Phillips Cyanogen Customer

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2014
    Messages:
    57
    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.
     

Share This Page