I recently got a 130mm TS optics refractor. i set the limits on eqmod each night i use it based on the target. sometimes the limits will stop the tracking before the meridian is reached. in these cases eqmod stops the scope and sgpro is still trying to image and phd is still trying to guide. since the scope is not tracking guiding fails and causes the sequence to abort. i have it set to auto recover every 10 minutes for 90 minutes and it still ends up failing and parking the scope after it aborts. what doe you guys do to avoid this? is there a way to tell SGP to pause when the limits are reached and restart X minutes after the meridian?
In general the mount limits in EQMOD would not be dependent on the target. Why would you define these differently per target? The main reason for setting mount limits in EQMOD is to ensure the telescope and all the astrophotography gear attached to it can not run into the pier or tripod when passing the meridian too far. This only depends on the mount, telescope and gear attached. So it can be different for different configurations of telescopes and bulky things like filterwheels on the same mount, but not different per target. You will need to check once how far your mount and telescope can run beyond the meridian without hitting the pier or tripod. Then set the limit in EQMOD to that distance, e.g. one hour post meridian. Then ensure you enable automatic meridian flip in SGP and have that run e.g. ten minutes post meridian. This way SGP will never hit the limits set in EQMOD and those EQMOD limits only serve as a fail safe in case SGP for some reason does not trigger a meridian flip and just leaves the mount tracking too far.
if im imaging something close to zenith the camera will hit the tripod before the meridian. if it is lower on the horizon the scope wont be at such a great angle and could travel past the meridian. the 130mm with everything attached is pretty long. i dint have this issue with my 90mm or when im using a camera lens.
OK, so you can not do a meridian flip then for these objects at high altitude with your setup. In that case I am not sure if you can use the EQMOD mount limits. You should still define these as a safety measure, but it will be cumbersome to do this for each target.
SGP does not have an automated solution for this situation as far as I know. You can duplicate your target in a sequence though and define the appropriate start and end times. First one would then be from the moment the target becomes available above your local horizon until a certain time before transit. SGP will then pause and pick the target up again some time after transit at the second start time you have defined and continue until the second end time.
This should take care of SGP and PHD2. In order to prevent your mount running into the pier or tripod, and also not hitting the EQMOD mount limits, you can define a post-event option for the last event in the first occurance of this target in your sequence. That post event can then either park the scope or run a script that stops your mount tracking (if you have a way of controlling your mount like that).
SGP should then just pause the sequence before the meridian, park the mount, wait until the target has passed the meridian with sufficient distance and then resume the sequence, automatically unparking the mount. If you want to try this out you should certainly accompany the entire process a first time with your eyes on both SGP and the mount in case anything goes wrong and you need an emergency stop for the mount!
Ideal solution here isn’t software but hardware, get yourself a pier extension. I use one with my 127mm and not worry about crashes.