Pause guiding during filter change

Is there any way to have SGP pause guiding during a filter change and during a change in focus? I know it can pause during an autofocus run, but that’s not what I’m looking for.

Last night I was experimenting with just using filter offsets rather than having it run a full autofocus on each filter change. This was with a 8" SCT at 1500mm, OAG, ASI1600, and MoonLite focuser. Without guiding, it worked fine. It moved to the next filter, the focuser adjusted, and the image (by eye, anyway) was in-focus. Great. I added guiding with PHD2 to the mix. On the guiding graph as soon as the filter wheel moved, and again when the focuser moved, the guide star jumped around from the vibration. Not enough for PHD2 to lose lock, but enough that it spent nearly a minute nudging it back to center and settling. It was basically enough time that it negated the advantage of using filter offsets. I tried just a filter move and a focuser move separately outside of a sequence to see which one actually introduced the issue and it turns out that both of them cause it to jump around. The OAG is in front of the filter wheel so a change in the filter doesn’t result in an optical interruption in the guide star when the wheel moves.

How do people who use offsets with a relatively longer focal length and an OAG handle this? I looked around in all the settings to see if there was already a way to pause during a filter and/or focuser move but it seems it only exists for pausing during autofocus.

Thanks,
Dave

Dave, you mentioned two issues, the guide star jumping with the filterwheel moving and with the focus tube moving. The second is pretty standard and the pause guiding during AF should sort that out. The guidestar moving with the filterwheel is more unusual - that suggests a lot of energy and / or something not quite rigid enough in the assembly. If I hold up my 8-filter wheel for the QHY and get it to move the filter, I can hear but not feel any movement. It might be worthwhile asking the filterwheel vendor if it is possible to slow it down, or accel/decel?
(I forgot to mention, I have a Moonlight focuser on a 10-inch f/8 RCT and I have not seen that behaviour.)

Agree on the filter wheel, I was surprised to see any movement. Everything is screwed in tight. A Starizona reducer goes into the Moonlite via the 2” compression fitting which is also very tight.

I know about (and use) the option to pause guiding during AF. However, this isn’t an AF situation. I disabled the AF-on-filter-change option and was trying out the method of just having SGP adjust the focuser on a filter change based on the filter offsets rather than running the AF routine. So after the filter wheel moves, SGP commands the focuser to adjust. The largest adjustment is about 100 steps (Red). Which was apparently enough, although there doesn’t seem to be a lot of people posting about such an issue.

Dave