Monitoring Tools

PHD2 provides numerous monitoring and display tools to help you see how your guider is performing.  All of these tools are accessed under the 'View' pull-down menu and are described below.

Overlays

The simplest display tools are grid overlays superimposed over the main guider display window.  These are quite straightforward and include the following choices:
You can just click on the various overlay options under the 'View' menu and choose one that suits you.

Graphical Display

The graphical display window is one of the more powerful tools for judging guiding performance, and you will probably learn to rely on it.  A typical example is shown below:




The major portion of the window shows the detailed displacements of the guide star for each guide exposure, plotted left-to-right.  Normally, one line shows displacements in right ascension while the second line shows declination displacements.  However, you can use the 'Settings' button to the left of the graph to switch to camera (X/Y) axes if you prefer (not recommended).  You can also use the 'Settings' button to switch between display units of arc-seconds vs. camera pixels or to change the colors of the two graph lines.  The range of the vertical axis is controlled by the second button from the top, labelled y:+/-4" in this example.  The range of the horizontal axis - the number of guide exposures being plotted -  is controlled by the topmost button, labelled x:50 in this example.  This scale also controls the sample size used for calculating the statistics you see in the lower left part of the graph window.  These values show the root-mean-square (RMS or standard deviation) of the motions in each axis along with the total for both axes.  These are your  best estimators of guiding performance because they can be directly compared to star sizes and seeing conditions.  The 'RA Osc'  value shows the odds that the current RA move is in the opposite direction as the last RA move.  This is a carry-over statistic from the original PHD software and its usefulness is limited.  If it consistently runs above 0.5, you may be chasing the seeing because of a Min-Move value that is too low.   There are two other checkboxes to the left that can help you evaluate guider performance.  Clicking on the 'Corrections' box results in an overlay showing when guide commands are actually sent to the mount, along with their direction and magnitude.  In this example, these are shown as the vertical red and green lines appearing at irregular intervals along the horizontal axis.  This shows you how "busy" the guiding is - under optimal conditions, you should expect to see extended intervals when no guide commands are sent at all in Declination.  The other checkbox, labelled 'Trendlines', will superimpose trend lines in both axes to show if there is a consistent overall drift in the star position.  This is primarily useful for drift aligning where the declination trendline is used extensively.  But the RA trendline can show if your mount is tracking systematically slow or fast (or is seeing the effects of flexure) and can help if you are trying to set up custom tracking rates.  The trend line for Dec is also useful if you're trying to choose the correct direction for uni-directional Dec guiding.  If dithering commands are issued, usually by an external imaging application, a 'dithering' label will be superimposed on the graph in the appropriate time interval.  This tells you the star displacements being graphed are being influenced by the dithering operation.  The RMS statistics do not include the large excursions associated with dithering and settling.

The guiding graph will also show the directions (GuideNorth, GuideEast) associated with the guide commands, as shown in the example above. This can be helpful if you are looking at overall drift and want to determine how to set uni-directional guiding for declination.  These directions show how the guide star is drifting away from the lock position.  For example, if the Dec position of the guide star is moving upward in the graph, the guide star appears to be drifting "north" on the camera sensor.  This means that south guide pulses will be needed to move it back to the lock position.  Similarly, a downward drift in RA location means the the guide star is moving "east" on the camera sensor and west guide pulses will be applied.  For the purpose of setting up uni-directional Dec guiding, these rules apply:
    Dec drifting upward => select Dec guide mode = South
    Dec drifting downward => select Dec guide mode = North
For various mount and hardware reasons, these directions may not correspond to actual directions in the sky, particularly for Dec, but that doesn't matter.

The recommended way to look at guiding performance is to use units of arc-seconds rather than pixels.  Doing this allows an equipment-independent way of evaluating performance because it transcends questions of focal length and image scale.  To do this, you need to provide PHD2 with sufficient information to determine your guider image scale: namely, the focal length of the guide scope, the size of the guide camera pixels, and whatever binning level you're using.  Using the new-profile-wizard is the best way to insure these settings are correct. 

At the bottom of the graph window are active controls for adjusting guiding parameters "on the fly".  The guiding algorithm selections you've made will determine which controls are shown.  These controls have the same effect as those in the 'Brain' dialog, and they eliminate the need to stop guiding and navigate to another window to adjust guiding parameters.  Although these controls are prominently displayed, it is generally not productive to change them substantially during guiding.  Guiding improvements normally require long guiding intervals and careful analysis using the PHD2 LogViewer tool.  Poor guiding results usually arise from user error, from mechanical problems in the mount, or from movement of the gear on the mount.  Blindly changing guiding parameters doesn't help with any of these things and usually makes matters worse.

Stats



If you want to monitor guiding performance without necessarily having the graph window open, you can click on  the "Stats" menu item.  That will display the salient statistics with controls for clearing the data or changing the number of guide exposures used to compute the statistics.  The tracking statistics are the same as those in the Graph tool, and like those, don't include the effects of dithering and settling. This window is also useful for confirming camera binning, monitoring the guide camera temperature, and getting a quick calculation of your guide camera's field of view.

Star Profile and Target Displays



The star profile display shows the cross-section of the guide star along with measurements of its full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) and half-flux-diameter (HFD).  HFD is generally a more stable measure of the star size since it doesn't require curve fitting or any assumption about the overall shape of the star image.  If you see substantial fluctuations in this parameter or wildly varying star profiles, it may be an indication that the star is too faint, the exposure time is too short, the camera is out-of-focus, or the seeing is poor.  This tool can  help with focusing the guide camera, a procedure that can be tedious if you're using an off-axis-guider or a small finder-scope.  For purposes of focusing, the HFD number is shown in a large font so you can see it from a distance while focusing your guide scope/camera.  Just un-dock the Star Profile window and expand it until you can see the HFD number easily.  If you are starting well out-of-focus, you'll probably see only a few fuzzy stars in the frame, so just choose the smallest one that is clearly visible.  Use exposure times of at least 2 seconds if possible so you don't chase the seeing.  At the same time, don't let the star become saturated, showing a distinctive flat top.  Now adjust the focus so the HFD gets consistently smaller - but stop as soon as HFD reverses direction or seems to plateau.  At that point, the star may be saturated, so move to a dimmer star in the field.  Since you have already improved the focus, you can hopefully see a dimmer star.  Continue in this way until you've reached a focus point that shows a minimum level of HFD for the faintest star you can use.  At each point in the focusing process, you'll probably want to watch the HFD values for a few frames so you can mentally average out the effects of seeing.  Bad focus is a common issue for beginners, leading to problems in calibration or poor guiding results.  You can also use a Bahtinov focus mask or another app like SharpCap for focusing.  In general, you can't reach critical focus by simply looking at the stars in the image display - you need some sort of measurement help to get a good result. During guiding, you can use the Star Profile tool to be sure the star doesn't have a flat top (saturation) and shows a tapered shape like the example shown above.  If the star profile window is large enough, it will also show the decimal X/Y coordinates of the star centroid.




The target display is another useful way to visualize overall guider performance.  The red 'X' shows the star displacement for the most recent guide exposure, while the blue dots show the recent history.  You can zoom in or out with the controls at the upper left of the window, as well as change the number of points shown in the history.   If you are using an ASCOM connection for either the 'mount' or 'aux-mount', PHD2 will also show the directions (SkyNorth, SkyEast) associated with the star movement, as shown in the example above.  This can be helpful if you are looking at overall drift and want to determine how to set uni-directional guiding for declination.  The up/down convention used in this graph has nothing to do with the camera orientation or N-S-E-W movements in the field of view.

Adaptive Optics (AO) Graph

AO Graph Image

The AO graph is equivalent to the 'target' display, but shows the history of corrections relative to the axes of the adaptive optics device.  The red rectangle indicates the outer edges of the AO device, while the interior yellow rectangle shows the "bump" region.  If the star moves outside the yellow rectangle, PHD2 will send a sequence of move commands to the mount - the "bump" - to smoothly place the guide star back near the center position.  When this occurs, green and blue lines will show the incremental bump and the remaining bump respectively.  The white dot on the display shows the current AO position, and the green circle (red when a bump is in progress) shows the averaged AO position.  The button in the upper left controls how many points will be plotted in the history.

Dockable/Moveable Graphical Windows

When the various performance windows are initially displayed, they are "docked" in the main window.  This means they are sized in a particular way and are aligned with two edges of the window - they are entirely contained within the bounds of the main PHD2 window.  However, you can move them around and resize them by clicking and dragging on the title bar of the window you want to examine.  This will often let you get a better view of the details being shown in the graphs.  They can be re-docked by dragging the title bar to the general region in which you want them docked - bottom, right, etc.  With just a bit of practice, it's easy to place them where they are most convenient.

There is also a menu item under the 'View" pulldown menu labeled 'Restore window positions.'  Clicking on this menu item will automatically restore all of the dockable/moveable windows to their default, docked positions.  This can be useful , for example, if you are switching between screens with different resolutions and one or more of the dockable windows has been "lost."  This function also restores the main PHD2 window to its default size, with a position near the upper lefthand corner of the screen.