Hi,

This is a tricky one but my guess is that the wobbly line is a geostationary (TV broadcast) satellite, the stars are moving but the satellite is not, and the cause of the line is wobbly is because of the guiding.

Br,
/Markku

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@Bart: I just submitted  invent.kde.org/education/kstars/-/merge_requests/365 which uses the artificial horizon constraints in scheduling.
If activated, it would delay a job until the target is above the horizon, and stop a job once it falls below the artificial horizon. 
To use it you both need to check a new checkbox and include that with your scheduler job, similar to the way you'd include an altitude constraint, 

 

Hi Paul,

What software are you using to process your images? If it is Pixinsight my guide covers most of the issues.

I usually use 25,000 ADU for my flats. I use a flat panel with a number of sheets of white paper to reduce the brightness to achieve an exposure time of around 3-4 sec. I also use a flat dark series taken at the same exposure as the flats to calibrate the flat (again this is in the guide). As the flats are always taken on the same session as the lights I never change the gain or offset (120 and 30 respectively). The white balance should be left at 50 for each setting in the indi gui panel.

The longer exposure is needed as the sensor response is far from linear at very short exposures.

You say that your flats have a red cast. This is a bit confusing as flats should not have any colour as you do not debayer the image. You just do a simple integration to create the master flat but do not do any other processing. If you view the resulting masterflat after stretching it should be easy to see variations in uniformity which relate to dust and errors in the light path which your processing will calibrate out of the light frames.

All the calibration of light frames using flats and darks are done before debayering the lights. Debayering is not done on flats or darks.
Let us know if this helps and let us know what processing software you are using. I only have experience with Pixinsight but there are other here that use other processing software.

Mike

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I see you also have an ASI1600MM Pro. Are you able to take more than a handful of images with it? I just tell Ekos to loop images on the autofocus tab, and it starts failing after just a few images.

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So your post got me intrigued with the Rock Pi. I ordered one from Ali Express, with 16GB eMMC storage. It's a speedy little guy, that's for sure! At least, compared to a Raspberry Pi.

I spent some time and ported my Waveshare Stepper Motor HAT INDI driver to work on the Rock Pi 4B. That was pretty straightforward.

So I got everything built and installed, and everything works! At least for a few captures of the ASI 1600MM Pro. And then it stops working until I reboot.

dmesg shows a bunch of errors about "Ring expansion failed". Are you getting anything like that in your dmesg?

Apparently that's been fixed in the kernel 4 years ago! The Rock Pi people are using an ancient 4.4 kernel.

I'm going to try pestering them and see if they will at least apply the fix to the 4.4 kernel, if they won't update to a newer kernel.

Otherwise I may have to build a kernel from source, with the patch applied. Not my first choice, however.

-- Kevin

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I would like to try an write a 3rd party driver. Are there any instructions for building from  the source for Mac?

Thanks

kurt

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I am running EKOS on my Mac in my home.
It connects to INDI Webmanager on a Stellarmate Pi4 in my observatory, and images are saved directly to a USB drive in the observatory connected to that Pi.

I turned on Summary Screen Preview in the EKOS settings - but no images display there.  
Is this because the images are not being saved on the computer that is running EKOS?

Peter


 

 

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BTW, I agree that this is not the most intuitive UI.
I'm not sure what would be more intuitive, though.

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Thank you Hy. You were correct. The twilight was stored in the schedule file...

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You were correct, I was out of disk space. Thank you for pointing that out!

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Wouter,
Thank you for responding. It was an issue with available disk space. I appreciate you pointing that out.

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Really excited to get an EAF the other day.  I received the ZWO 5v EAF and attached it to my Radian Raptor. It's cloudy so I can't really test it out like I want, but I am already stumped by the control panel and the "relative position", "max position", "absolute position" etc.  Trying to find literature on it but only found the focus module instructions for EKOS. Can anyone explain or point me in the right direction to some reference material that will explain this better. I'd like to get the settings right so I don't damage the motor in the EAF. Trial and error makes me nervous with sensitive equipment like this.

Thanks.

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This camera is my 1st CMOS style camera and it has been very challenging for me.

I have caught a number of recommendations for the camera which I have been following, but I can't say that I've been successful with the settings yet.

I've followed the recommendation that Spartacus has suggested in regards to 120 Gain and 30 Offset.

I've also heard different things about shooting Flats.  One is that it is recommended to get at least 3 second frames with the Flats.  With the Flats it is recommended to get the same exposure length and settings for Dark Flats instead of Bias Frames.  I've heard that the preferred Median ADU would be a little above 30,000.  These Flats don't have to match the Gain and Offset that the Light and Dark frames are.

I'm struggling with a number of the settings with this camera however such as;
1) My flats with the Median ADU of 35,000 have a red cast to them.  The red value ADU's are typically 10,000 higher than the Median value.
2) I can see where the Red and Blue white balance is adjustable in the INDI Control Panel, but adjusting these values doesn't seem to lower the ADU for red in relation to the other 2 colors.
3) Is there a way of holding the cooler temperature to maintain a minimum temperature value?

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Tonight I tried another set of Flats and noticed that it wouldn't capture again once I set the option to not take images if a temperature wasn't met.

It's possible that this caused the issue the 1st time but it didn't seem so obvious and it should have allowed an occasional image to be taken.

Would it be possible to force the settings to maintain a specific temperature?

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Also, DO NOT try and solve on Polaris, you are asking for it not to work, move to another part of the sky….mine never works on Polaris either…..

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Hi Again,

Thanks for all your help with this. Setting the gain to 90 has made it work. Would I be right in thinking that simulated mount is already pointing at true north? I wondered about this as when I do a polar align the green/yellow/purple triangle is tiny and the alt az error is 10 or 20 arc seconds which is why the triangle is tiny I suppose. Anyway, thanks for all your help with this and for getting it working.
 

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Greetings, QHY driver communication has gone really bad. Yesterday I tried to run my QHY as a guider (as usual). Everytime was starting, guiding froze and QHY didn't respond. I couldn't work guiding so I ended up doing some unguided captures that didn't go well. I attach the log file. Its pretty big, so please use search with keyword "qhy" to see the problems. I kindly ask you to give it a try and let's see how this problem can be solved. Bad QHY driver communication slowly gets on my nerves and I am really thinking of changing this camera if we don't find a solution. Too many problems ( and new ones),unfortunately without a solution so far. QHY is a real disappointment in building drivers for INDI. Thank you very much for your time.

Best wishes,George