Prevent sequence abort for lost stars

Sequence Generator
1

What is the box I have to check or uncheck to prevent SGP from aborting in the event of a lost star by PHD2?
I am imaging low in the sky and I have had many subs lost because SGP aborted within a few seconds of having completed a sub because PHD2 lost some of its guiding stars. I am always around when I image and can get PHD2 going again quickly. It is a waste of rare and valuable imaging time every time this happens. Is this a collateral damage of multi-star guiding?

Thanks

2

Is this a collateral damage of multi-star guiding?

As far as I know, loosing one (or more) of the “extra” stars when doing multi-star guiding will not cause SGP to abort the sequence - I don’t think PHD2 even reports it to SGP.

Loosing the main guide star is considered a fatal error - I’m not aware of any option to have SGP ignore this error.

Do you have automatic recovery enabled? You can configure SGP to try recover the sequence - it will re-acquire the guide star and do a plate solve to re-center the target…

3

If you want the recovery automated you could enable SGP’s automatic sequence recovery and use very short time periods for it to wait. Alternatively, if you’re there and it doesn’t need to be automated you could tell SGP that you’re not using an autoguider and then you handle PHD2 manually. If you’re there and this only happens on low targets that might be the more efficient way to handle it in terms of lost time.

Dave

4

Thank you for your reply.
Doesn’t SGP look for an autoguider if you don’t specify one?
And if that’s possible, will dithering happen if I tell SGP there is no autoguider?

5

If you tell SGP there is no guider, I don’t think it looks for one. But if you want to dither without having PHD2, I think you can select Direct Mount Guider under the AutoGuide tab and that will let SGP pulse the mount after every N frames. I’ve never tried it though.

6

Just one minor caution here: If you are using PHD2 in the “background” (i.e. SGP is not aware / connected to it), then you will need to baby-sit it and re-select guide the star after any kind of mount move (e.g. dithering, plate solving, centering etc etc)

Normally when SGP is connected to PHD2, it pauses guiding during any kind of move and tells PHD2 to re-acquire the guide star once the move has completed…