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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Mount Model tab (module) issues

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Mount Model tab (module) has been giving me trouble when I test it out. I was looking for a way to do my 10Micron mount modeling 100% from within ekos. Mainly because I either have my icron ranger on the scope and go windows/ascom and do the modeling that way or I have the RaspPi on there and do it with ekos. Right now my procedure has to be use windows/ascom and do a mount model and THEN switch over to raspberry / ekos to learn the software do testing.

What I have found is that, as mentioned in another thread I posted in last night, often times it will start exposing an image prior to the mount stopping slew and resume tracking. I think there might be some clues when I realize that the tracking state can not be manipulated or properly determined with the mount's indi driver. Stop/start tracking does nothing at all for example and often times it says "slewing" when the mount is actually just tracking.
But having said that I find it interesting that the log window says the following:

1. Slewing to target coordinates
2. sew complete. solving alignment point
3. capturing image
4. image received
... nothing further...

So if the part that says "solving alignment point" is printed when the solve begins it happens before the image is taken. So it must be trying to solve a prior image? or?? So the mount is already moving to the next target when it exposes for the next solve perhaps? I don't know I just found that weird.

Another issue is that it does not seem to cancel a solve at a specified time. I found a spot in the astrometry settings that had a default time out of 180. Not sure what it is supposed to do but I can assure you that the solve will keep chewing at a bad frame until it is manually canceled. Changing that value doesn't do anything.

So what needs to be done is if there IS a position that it can't solve (tree maybe?) it will chew on it for a time-out value and then abort that solve, mark that position as bad, and skip ahead to the next on the list.

I believe it should work like this:
1. verify that model points are above horizon altitude limit
2. Confirm next alignment point on list and slew to alignment point
3. verify mount status. Has slewing stopped? Is mount tracking? If not keep checking until yes.
4. initiate settle time (currently does nothing for me)
5. has settle time completed? If yes...
6. take exposure
7. has exposure completed and downloaded?
8. plate solve
9. Has plate solve completed within time out limit? If yes, skip to 11
10. Plate solve time out? Mark bad and GoTo # 2.
11. Sync position and go to #2

Thanks. Hopefully this can get fixed in the near future. Trying to get more people to use the software.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Jasem Mutlaq, Andrew Burwell
4 years 4 months ago #45172

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I would use this...
4 years 4 months ago #45182

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Hi mpfjr,

Do I understand right that you're trying to use the generic EKOS mount modeling system for a 10micron mount ?

As I see it the EKOS mount modeling system is a generic system that augments the pointing of a mount. Any mount.
A 10micron mount however has a built-in modeling system, far superior to what EKOS has (because fi. it uses the absolute encoders to model things like sag and mirror flop and also corrects for air pressure and air temperature).
The EKOS mount modeling system currently does not program that 10micron internal modeling system.

That said the EKOS mount modeling system should of course work. But I do not recommend to use it on a 10micron mount, I recommend to use its superior internal modeling system.
If you want to continue with the EKOS mount modeling system I have to defer to others here on this forum. I hope they can help you further.

If you want to program the 10micron internal modeling system then you have several options of which 2 work on Linux today (that I know of) : Either use the 'Alignment' tab in the 10micron INDI device driver by manually adding plate solved coordinate results. I have used this to make a model myself once. Or get MountWizzard version3 or later to automate the whole thing. I now only use MountWizzard together with a local installation of astrometry.net and the astrometry-api-lite interface to it that offers the same interface as nova.astrometry.net . Sadly MountWizzard v3 is not released yet publicly, and the repo still only has 2.x branches. The good news is that the MountWizzard author is working on a new version.

Here's a screenshot of a recent model I made with it :



-- Hans
The following user(s) said Thank You: Peter Sütterlin
4 years 4 months ago #45199
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This is my understanding as well. I’ve been working with MWOrion on getting MW4 running on the Mac. He’s been very helpful. It’s almost all working now with the exception of the ZWO cameras, which he’s troubleshooting at the moment. It seems like all INDI would need to do is add barometric pressure, temperature and humidity to it’s plate solve when adding a point to the 10Micron mount. Automating it would be great if it was in Ekos, but looking at the functionality of MountWIzard, I can see why it would probably take more than that to integrate.
4 years 4 months ago #45203

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Hi Hans,

MountWizzard3 is for many months on GitHub online:
github.com/mworion/MountWizzard3

Michel
4 years 4 months ago #45207

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Thank you for the detailed response Hans, but I'd like to correct something. The "Mount Modeling" wizard in Ekos is not the same thing as INDI Alignment Subsystem (which is used by EQMod). It is simply a standard tool developer by Robert Lancaster that slews to different points in the sky to solve & sync. So it is in essence just syncing the the internal 10micron mount model but it is perhaps missing some environmental parameters?. Using a dedicated tool like MountWizard is of course much better than Ekos's generic tool.

Andrew, where would we get the temperature, humidity and pressure?
4 years 4 months ago #45280

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I believe temp, pressure, humidity come from open weather. Or, most 10 Micron users use An Mbox device for this. There is already an INDI driver for MBox. The 10Micron INDI driver can take a all this information and write a single point into the mount’s computer, using one of the driver tabs. But it cannot create a distribution of points across the sky, and automate solving and writing those points to the mount. The mount then calculates its own pointing model from that data.

These actions are what something like MountWizard does. But it seems all the pieces are there in EKOS, except for the automation.

Anyhow, this is my basic understanding of how it works, I’ve only just recently received a 10Micron mount, and not yet had a clear night to use it. I’ll be using MountWizard to create the mount model, then switch to EKOS to image.
4 years 4 months ago #45291

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