My astronomy project:
Setup of EQMOD and PHD2 for auto guiding

Contents:

1. Setup EQMOD
2. Setup PHD2

Note:
I take no responsibility or liability for what are written here, you use the information on your own risk!

2, Setup PHD2:

After my first test of the EQ6 modified mount with timing belts I understand I must do a much more accurate setup. I can't have my old parameters as a base for my rebuilt EQ6 mount. I'm also sure that the old setup wasn't optimal. I have to search internet for some guide how to setup the EQMOD and PHD2 software to get it optimal.

The document "PHD2 Best Practices" by Bruce Waddington and Andy Galasso:

After a half hour of searching on the internet I found a lot of guides how to setup PHD2, but this guide stands out, "PHD2 Best Practices" by Bruce Waddington and Andy Galasso. Andy I know from earlier and he helped me with the comet offset guiding. This guide looks to be very good and I try to follow it as long I can.

At PHD2 you can download this guide as a PDF file, there are three languages to choose from:

• https://openphd guiding.org/ phd2-best-practices/ (PHD2 Best Practices, PHD2)

Other useful links how to use and setup PHD2:

• https://openphd guiding.org/manual/ ?section= Introduction.htm (PHD2 Introduction, Open PHD guiding)
• http://adgsoftware.com/ phd2 utils/ (PHD2 Utils, ADG software)
• https://openphdguiding.org/ Analyzing PHD2 Guide Logs.pdf (Analyzing PHD2 Guide Logs, Open PHD guiding)
• http://celestialwonders.com/ tools/ rotation Max Error Calc.html (rotation Max Error Calc, Celestail wonders)

What I written below is how I have setup my equipment with help of the above information.

Advanced Setup, Global:

I click on the "Brain" button in PHD2 and choose Global setup.

The Global setup is just the standard.

Advanced Setup, Camera:

In the Camera setup I do the following:

• Check the pixel size, 5.2 micron. No difference than earlier.
• Target SNR = 6, a bit lower than the recommended 9 (my choice to get more guide stars).

Advanced Setup, Guiding:

I check the focal length of the guide scope, 400 mm, ok. All other parameters according to recommendation.

Click the advanced button.

Advanced Setup, Guiding (Detailed Calibration Parameters):

New window open, "Detailed Calibration Parameters":

I can read that the recommended guide speed are from 0.5 to 1.0 sidereal. I only had set it to 0.3 in my old setup. I increased it to 0.9 now. I have also change this in EQMOD. Click the reset button and get new Calibration step, ms = 550.

Advanced Setup, Algorithms (before):

This is the parameters I used when the EQ6 mount had spur gears. I reset both RA and DEC parameters.

Advanced Setup, Algorithms (after reset):

With the parameters reset I start with a new fresh setup. Later I also enabled the backlash compensation and got much better guiding in the DEC axis.