Request for separate RA/DEC guide rates

Harmonic Geared Mount
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cwoodhou
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:27 pm

Request for separate RA/DEC guide rates

Post by cwoodhou »

I sold my Rainbow to buy this mount. I note that both mounts force a common guide rate for both axes.
On my Rainbow it was usually the case that the RMS guide error was worse on DEC. I could improve DEC RMS by lowering the rate but then the common guide rate was too slow to keep with the rapidly changing RA tracking error. Lowering DEC aggression helped, but not as well. On the Rainbow, turning DEC off entirely for a well-aligned mount was the best solution!!

I see that the Pegasus mount has the same behavior, and the DEC RMS guide error is higher than RA in some of Pegasus’ own published PHD2 plots. That should never be for a mount without backlash.

Please can you update the firmware and Unity app to permit the user to set different guide rates for DEC/RA (as ASCOM allows too).

We can then have a high guide rate that keeps up with RA changes and a low guide rate that does not impart too much energy (and potential wobble) into guiding DEC.

Regards
Chris Woodhouse FRAS
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Evans
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Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2020 3:06 pm
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Re: Request for separate RA/DEC guide rates

Post by Evans »

Thank you for the recommendation
It is indeed on our future firmware development list.
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