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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Align tab mount model 2nd star captures too quickly

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greetings!

When I set up for the night, after polar alignment, I do a 2-star mount model where the stars are selected for me. I hit the play button and the mount zooms off to the first star, waits for it to settle and takes the image. After it solves and moves to the second star, it seems to start capture right away, or at least before the mount stops and settles. This is using the eqmod mount and the latest bleeding 2.8.7. It has been doing this for some time. I just now remembered to make mention of it.

The work-around is to just stop the attempt at running astrometry, and click the capture and solve button manually. It then is able to finish the 2-star alignment without other problems.
6 years 4 months ago #20946

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You need to increase the duration in the "settle" editbox. This is the delay the solver will wait for after slewing.

My HEQ5 setup uses 10 seconds to avoid that sort of issue.

One important thing is that if your mount is NOT tracking for some reason, it will appear as if it has not settled yet. But in fact it is not tracking, so, startrails.

-Eric.
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6 years 4 months ago #20960

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I had raised the settle time. It is working perfectly for every other aspect, polar alignment, slew, solve and slew, track, etc. It is not a case of needing to just settle where the stars are still wiggling either. It is a case of the frame being grabbed while the mount is still in full motion. The star trails are sometimes all the way across the frame. I have only seen this in while moving to the 2nd star of a two star alignment from the mount model window play button.
6 years 4 months ago #21022

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Sorry I simply missed you mentioning the mount model tab. I didn't try this part yet, I still hop from star to star towards my target, adding align points and staring at the scenery along the way :)

-Eric
6 years 4 months ago #21026

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Yes, I wrote that tool last a couple of months ago to make it easier to get started on setup, assuming that your mount benefits from multiple alignment points like mine does. It mainly is a way to automatically select useful alignment points, slew to them, and then capture snd solve automatically. It is not required by any means. You can just slew to a couple of points in the sky and plate solve (assuming you pick useful points). The tool I made works perfectly in the simulators, but needs more refinement in the field I think.

I think it would be particularly useful for people who are running completely automated, once it works well, since they could have it run through the alignment points on setup. But it could also be useful if you just want the mount to get all set up and ready to go automatically. It needs more people to test it really.
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6 years 4 months ago #21031

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It is indeed a great tool. It does exactly as it is designed to and my go-to ability after using it puts things on both sides of the meridian right where they need to be. It seems like this might just be a simple request to not attempt the capture until the the settle time has expired after a slew? This might just be a missing function of the module?

Thanks for putting it together. Very handy.
Last edit: 6 years 4 months ago by Jim.
6 years 4 months ago #21037

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You might be right. I think it does it after the mount says its ready. But I'm not sure that it does account for the settle time. I will check into that.
6 years 4 months ago #21039

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I just checked this out. It looks like the delay starts after the mount stops on every capture and solve. I tried a delay of 8 seconds (8000 in the box). It seems to work. But I only tried on the simulators since its daylight now. I can try next time its dark.
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6 years 4 months ago #21116

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That is both good and bad. Good because that is how we would expect it to work, but then what is going on with my setup I wonder. I will have to see when it is doing the capture. Is it capturing before it starts to slew because it has a successful timer expiration (from the first slew)? Or is it at the end of the slew in which case, I should try an even longer settle.
I cannot try tonight, but looks like tomorrow night might be good.
6 years 4 months ago #21119

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Oddly enough, this also happens to me even when plate solving outside of the mount model tool (which is awesome by the way.!)
And with me it happens with the second capture in the plate solve sequence. Ekos captures an image, solves, slews, then captures a second image, and it is this one (image) that has trails all the way across. I saw but did not pay attention to the settle pararmeter, I am sure that would solve the issue.
6 years 1 month ago #23731
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