PHD2GuideLog

PHD2 Guide Log Format

The PHD2 Guide Log records information about each camera frame while calibrating or guiding.

Each time calibration or guiding starts a new section is added to the log. Each section consists of a summary of calibration or guiding settings, a column label line, and lines for the camera frames.

The lines for the camera frames are in comma-separated value (CSV) format.

There may be informational lines interspersed with the CSV lines indicating events that affect guiding, such as guiding parameter changes. These lines all start with INFO:.

All distances and positions are in units of guide camera pixels.

Calibration section

The calibration section columns are:

Column	Description
Direction	calibration step direction
Step	step number
dx	x-axis distance from starting point
dy	y-axis distance from starting point
x	x position
y	y position
Dist	distance from starting position

Guiding section

The guiding section columns are:

Column	Description
Frame	Frame number
Time	elapsed time (seconds) from start of guiding
mount	guide correction device "Mount" or "AO", or "DROP" if camera frame was rejected
dx	X distance from lock position
dy	Y distance from lock position
RARawDistance	distance from lock position on Dec axis
DECRawDistance	distance from lock position on RA axis
RAGuideDistance	effective RA distance computed by the RA guide algorithm
DECGuideDistance	effective Dec distance computed by the Dec guide algorithm
RADuration	RA guide pulse duration (ms)
RADirection	RA pulse direction E or W
DECDuration	Dec guide pulse duration (ms)
DECDirection	Dec pulse direction N or S
XStep	AO X-axis step
YStep	AO Y-axis step
StarMass	Star mass value
SNR	Star Signal to Noise Ratio value
ErrorCode	Error code value for this frame (0 if no error)
ErrorDescription	description of the error, if any