Using PEC correction in EQMOD?

After getting my head around using EQMOD with my ASTROEQ mount controller the next stage was using my webcam in my finder scope to guide with.

Plugging the webcam into PHD push her dummy is straight forward and once you have a guide star selected and start guiding its just a matter of tweaking a few setting in PHD to get an even graph going. 

My next aim was to find the errors in my mounts gear cycle and smooth them out using PEC Perodic Error correction.

Using EQMOD this is now a task made much simpler with a function called AutoPec.

Once your are guiding with PHD you move to the Auto Pec section in EQMOD and simply hit the record button while your guiding. It takes about an hour to gather 5 cycles of data doing this and once it has completed the task it will save the file make the correction and apply the PEC automatically.

Because EQMOD saves the file you can then put it into PECPREP another free software programme and tweak it more if you wish to.



So the upshot of all this is that your mounts errors are smoothed out and this improves your guiding.

First tests have proved good but I really could do with some nice clear nights to make further tests and have a good run at it.

Not something to be doing on a good night for imaging if you have never done this better to devote one night to trying PEC correction out using the Auto Pec function in EQMOD.

The control section for AutoPec in EQMOD






Comments

Popular Posts