SC-3 Long

Here you are.

 

Any updates?

 

Tonight I was out testing my CC spacing and decided to play with the AO a little more. This is the first time I have used the telescope since I reported my AO problem.

When I tried to guide, within seconds the star quickly headed off the AO guider screen in the X axis to the right. I tried several times with the same result. While this was happening the RMS Wander reflected the motion but the AO Tilt did not reflect the motion. My guide rate was 0.3 seconds. I tried at 1 second with the same result.

I wondered if the AO calibration somehow was corrupted so I tried to re-calibrate. It would locate the star, put out a message saying calibrating AO, it moved the star one direction on the X axis then stopped. I tried several times at different exposures with the same result.

I don't know why I would get worse results than previously. At least then I would get 4-6 minutes before the AO would go crazy. The only change since I first reported my problem was some MS updates. Can't do much about them.

 

Just for yucks I downfgraded to v6.3. It didn't make any differences so I returned to v6.4. The AO will no longer do AO Calibrate. Mount calibration is fine. If I try guiding with the AO, after a short peiod of time it will take off in a random (X or Y) direction.

I am beginning to think that maybe this is a hardware problem.

 

I downloaded v6.50 today. It guides now but there is still some flakiness.

Initially, when I would try to Locate on the AO window it would take all of the dark frames and when it would finally take the Locate frame MDL would crash. No messages or log entries - it would just go away. After about a half dozen crashes it magically started working and has continued to work.

Then I went for AO calibration. It still will not calibrate on Bin2 but it will calibrate on Bin1. The calibration axes are still at 45 degrees to the window instead of 90 degrees but it seems to guide ok when set to Bin2. I guess it must be smart enought to figure out the binning change on the fly.

Then I went to mount calibration in the AO window. It would make the first move then stop. No messages or alarms. After several iterations MDL stopped taking any images from any tab so I had to shut it down. It would also not make an image when other apps (such as Platesolve 3) requested it to. After restarting, it worked normally and has continued to. Weird.

The AO seems to behave a lot better than it did with v6.40. The guide star isn't jumping all over the frame like it was but after several 2min subs it still runs away over the course of a couple of guider cycles (I am using 32x32 guide box and 6 pixel max move so it is moving much more than the max move). It seems to like running away toward a corner instead of an edge. I wonder if that has anything to do with the 45 degree calibration. I tried both 1 hz and 3 hz with the same results. It behaves better at 3 hz.

There is currently a breeze of about 7-9mph. I wouldn't normally try to image with that much wind but I figured I could still test things. Maybe it will behave better when it is calmer.

Out of curiosity were there any changes made to the FWHM algorithms for the Information window? I use CCDInspector to monitor FWHM and aspect. MDL and CCDI used to agree pretty well but it seems that they currently disagree by 0.5" or more. MDL gives the smaller number.

I installed the April update to Win 11 this morning before downloading MDL. Don't know if that could affect anything.

 

Oh well. Spoke too soon.

Went to Locate. MSL turned grey and went Not Responding. Had to to kill it. Opened ASI Studeo. It operated camera fine. Restarted MDL. Now when doing Locate, MDL crashes consistantly. Tried several times with a crash each time.

Calling it quits for the night.

 

We may have success.

I ran the DLImagingASCOMInstaller that you mentioned in another post. It seems to have made a huge difference. No more crashes and I was able to image for 40 min in a 9 mph wind with no runaways and actually had round stars. CCDI and Information window are in reasonable agreement.

I will keep my fingers crossed and wait for the moon to go away so I can try some real imaging.

 

I spoke too soon.

Tonight I tried a real imaging session. For the most part guiding worked but there are still some issues. The guide star seems to always jump around a lot more than it did in my AO8. I have no way of knowing if that is the way it is supposed to be or if it is some kind of hardware/software issue. An odd thing is if it starts jumping wildly it will eventually leave the guide bos. At that time if I stop and restart guiding the guide star magically reappears in the center of the guide box even though it was gone. Also, even though it is jumping around a substantial part of the field, the Wander only shows a fraction of a pixel. Makes no sense. They dont' seem to correspond with each other.

The real problm is the crashes haven't really gone away. I have, however, narrowed down the circumstances. They almost always happen the first time doing a Locate after focusing (I use Focusmax). Once I restart MDL the Locate will be ok. If I focus, MDL will crash on Locate. I can pretty well count on it. I am concerned that all of these crashes are going to corrupt my Windows installation or maybe other software running at the time.