How long is dithering supposed to take?

[Tempusfugit]

Hi,

I tried dithering  for the first time the other night.  It seemed to take a good 60 seconds to dither in right ascension alone (I don't guide in declination) as I use a Star Adventurer.

Is this normal?

 

merci

[admin]

Depending on your setup 30 to 60 seconds is not uncommon.  PHD is doing the dithering, BYE is just along for the ride and needs to wait until PHD is done.

 

Regards,

[s3igell]

The usual "Culprit" is your setup for "Settle Dither At..."

 

The value is intended to specify the Maximum amount that PHD can report as "Distance from Lock-Position" before BYE/BYN will consider the Dither "Settled-enough" to continue to the next Exposure.

The Default Value is "0.25" (one quarter of a Pixel) - which is rather "small" for most modern Guide Cameras.  Try increasing this value to 0.5.

 

(This was covered in a recent 12/15/16 discussion thread on the "open-phd-guiding" Google Group by no less than Jerry Ludigruss.)

[Tempusfugit]

The usual "Culprit" is your setup for "Settle Dither At..."

 

The value is intended to specify the Maximum amount that PHD can report as "Distance from Lock-Position" before BYE/BYN will consider the Dither "Settled-enough" to continue to the next Exposure.

The Default Value is "0.25" (one quarter of a Pixel) - which is rather "small" for most modern Guide Cameras.  Try increasing this value to 0.5.

 

(This was covered in a recent 12/15/16 discussion thread on the "open-phd-guiding" Google Group by no less than Jerry Ludigruss.)

Going from 0.25 to 0.5 makes the dithering needs less time to execute?

[admin]

Going from 0.25 to 0.5 makes the dithering needs less time to execute?

 

Yes, but your first recourse should be to lower the aggressiveness as well.

[s3igell]

Yes, but your first recourse should be to lower the aggressiveness as well.

Why, necessarily??  Most thought on Dithering with DSLRs is that larger (more Aggressive) Dithering is desirable (especially for the Shorter Focal Lengths which are prevalent amongst DSLR users)...

[admin]

Because the OP wants a shorter dither cycle and this is the most direct way to achieve this.

 

Increasing the Settle Dither At parameter will simply terminate the dither cycle sooner and dither may not yet be quite done yet... so increasing this may also warrants that you increase the calm down period just to be sure. 

 

Regards,