7.5.16

PHD2 health warning

'thou shalt not dither with PE'

How can anyone possibly image with 16" PE spikes? Impossible, no? Shock horror even...

APT eqmod and PHD2
testing somewhere in the sky: time to cut this one short...
...or is it?


But had on a minute. Haven't I always had 16" spikes? I must have had. It's only now that guiding has told me that I know the whole truth. The new reality is heartbreaking. I feel as though I cannot continue with life. I change mysteriously acronymed variables such as RA: Agr, Hys and MnMo because that's what you can change and that's what everyone else changes. So so shall I.

Whereas before I'd set the intervalometer and then have a look through my binoculars. At stars. Now instead, I sit for hours staring at a graph. Thinks: What the hell? Egg-shaped stars and horrific noise. Everyone would advise me to get those spikes fixed and tell me where to start to look, On one list they tell you to buy grease, replacement cables, an 80ED or a 200PDS, a new eq5... Or just give up!

I go ahead anyway expecting to later post the log-file to the long-suffering-patience-of-a-saint devs on the PHD2 mailing list. Everyone would advise me to get those spikes fixed and tell me where to start to look.

I had become a graph watcher. Addiction and obsession. I needed detox.

I stopped looking at the sky and looked only at blue and red lines emanate from a graph. My anxiety grew. Every 2 minutes, PE kicked in. I became more and more of a nervous wreck. I took to drugs and was admitted to the psycho ward at my local asylum. Everyone would advise me to get those spikes fixed and tell me where to start to look.
So, here goes. Here are my 12 dither-stacked snaps of m51. May God one day forgive.
to all the guys @ PHD2
amazingly good engineering
a big thank you