4 replies to this topic

[Mikeiss]

Hello Cloudy Nights peeps. I have an older ASI120MC that I bought way back in 2015 when they were new, therefore it is the USB 2.0 version which I think might have something to do with my issue. A while back when I got my ASI174MM-Cool, my idea was to use the 120 for guiding. I ran into issues almost immediately with PHD2 first. I had no trouble setting up the profile using the brain wizard in PHD2, and by itself PHD2 would power the 120 and work via USB and ST4 cables. However once I try to do the same thing with the 174 also plugged in, PHD2 bypasses the 120 and tries to guide with the 174. I got messages about a sudden change in pixel size and dark libraries not matching. To bypass this, I just got everything running with in PHD2 with the 174 unplugged. This worked for a while as I was using Firecapture for my acquisition.
I recently decided it was time to step up to the big leagues with NINA. I ran into similar issues with NINA. I don't remember what error message I was getting initially when I tried to open PHD2 through NINA but it wasn't working. I thought I had come up with a similar workaround, just open PHD2 first, initialize the camera and then open NINA and power everything up. Well this was all well and good in practice runs in my living room. But when it came time to capture M82 last week, I got a message about Pulse guiding failure when I tried to find a star to guide on. So it's back to ST4 until I get a new camera or different guiding software I guess.

So after that long rant, has anyone else ran into similar issues when trying to use their ASI120MC for auto guiding? Do people even use these things anymore, or am I the only one?

 

-Mike

[DuncanM]

Hello Cloudy Nights peeps. I have an older ASI120MC that I bought way back in 2015 when they were new, therefore it is the USB 2.0 version which I think might have something to do with my issue. A while back when I got my ASI174MM-Cool, my idea was to use the 120 for guiding. I ran into issues almost immediately with PHD2 first. I had no trouble setting up the profile using the brain wizard in PHD2, and by itself PHD2 would power the 120 and work via USB and ST4 cables. However once I try to do the same thing with the 174 also plugged in, PHD2 bypasses the 120 and tries to guide with the 174. I got messages about a sudden change in pixel size and dark libraries not matching. To bypass this, I just got everything running with in PHD2 with the 174 unplugged. This worked for a while as I was using Firecapture for my acquisition.
I recently decided it was time to step up to the big leagues with NINA. I ran into similar issues with NINA. I don't remember what error message I was getting initially when I tried to open PHD2 through NINA but it wasn't working. I thought I had come up with a similar workaround, just open PHD2 first, initialize the camera and then open NINA and power everything up. Well this was all well and good in practice runs in my living room. But when it came time to capture M82 last week, I got a message about Pulse guiding failure when I tried to find a star to guide on. So it's back to ST4 until I get a new camera or different guiding software I guess.

So after that long rant, has anyone else ran into similar issues when trying to use their ASI120MC for auto guiding? Do people even use these things anymore, or am I the only one?

 

-Mike

Have you installed ASCOM?

[Mikeiss]

Have you installed ASCOM?

I have, I use GS server to power the mount. I guess I could have still used NINA for my last image, as I didn't know that NINA supported ST-4 guiding. I'll have to give that a try next time and see if I can dither that way. 

 

-Mike

[DuncanM]

I have, I use GS server to power the mount. I guess I could have still used NINA for my last image, as I didn't know that NINA supported ST-4 guiding. I'll have to give that a try next time and see if I can dither that way. 

 

-Mike

The ASCOM camera chooser should label the cameras as camera 1 and camera 2, and it should default to the which ever camera you previously used. If you're using the NEQ-6 you shouldn't have to use the ST-4 port for guiding.

[rgsalinger]

It's not up to NINA to support ST-4 guiding. NINA just uses PHD for guiding. So, PHD needs to support and does support guiding with an ST4 cable. As Duncan says, check that the ZWO ASCOM driver that you are using supports both cameras, then just choose accordingly and enjoy. That's the beauty of ASCOM in a nutshell. It's up to the camera vendor to write a compatible driver and the includes having two cameras of the same brand connected in one imaging system. 

 

Rgrds-Ross