Hi Folks,
I am new coming to Ekos/Kstars, having been using SGP for a while. I am trying to develop my approach to flats in Ekos. I’m aware of the flat automation facilities, and have a question:

— How do I automate a slew to altitude 0, azimuth 90 prior to starting my flats sequence? I’m aware of the option to slew to a particular Alt/Az as part of each flat run, but I only need this slew once before I take all of my flats through each filter. Also, I need the sequence to pause while I set the flatman onto the OTA. Is there such a thing as a saved location that I can use for slewing to this ‘pointing at the zenith’ position?

Of course I welcome any advice on a ‘better way’ to approach this!

Thanks!

When Ekos starts, you get a popup called the INDI Control Panel. There you see tabs for each of the devices connected so go to the mount tab. There you see several tabs and one is called Site Management. With the mount pointed at altitude 0, azimuth 90 hit the Current button and then the Write Data button. This will set the park position to the current position. Next time when you want the mount to go to altitude 0, azimuth 90 you only need to park it and it will go there.


HTH, Wouter

Hi Wouter,
Thanks for the response! I am aware of the Site Management tab, and I already use the standard Park 3 for my Mach1 GTO as the Default park position. So, what I really need is something like this on the Site Management tab - several custom park positions that can be labeled. Something like:

-- Park: End of Session
-- Park: Flats

Thanks,
Tim

So using the Ekos "Slew to Az/Alt" option in calibration dialog, why isn't this enough? I can see that it could use a confirmation / settle time, but is there anything else besides that?

Hi Jasem,
Using that approach is somewhat problematic: The slew works, but I have to walk over and put the Flatman on the OTA before it starts exposing. Is there an option to pause exposures until I place the flatman on top of the OTA after the slew? Or is there a better approach I am not considering?

Thanks,
Tim

I suppose we can add a confirmation step there. Probably a better option for you is to get flipflat so it's completely automated.

Hi Jasem,
I have two scopes that use the same Flatman, so it's probably not in the cards for me to buy two FlipFlats. So, it sounds like the confirmation dialog would be a good solution. To confirm: the way this would work is that I would program in the Alt/Az position to the calibration dialog and check a box to ask Ekos to prompt me to confirm the Flatman is in place, then, when I launch a run of flats, it would slew to the Alt/Az position, then prompt me to confirm the Flatman is in place before commencing flat exposures. Is that what you envision? If so, that would work well. I am assuming that it would not re-slew to the same Alt/Az position for subsequent flats of different filters - it would just see that it is already in the correct Alt/Az position and not move.

Thanks, Jasem. You have a really great product going here, and I do appreciate the work you and your team are doing!

Hi Jasem,

I just read my posting, and saw a need for elaboration: the way I intend to do flats is to capture my light frames, then, at the end of the night, I would do all flats for all filters in a sequence. So, I would slew to the Alt/Az position, then do the L | R | G | B | Ha flats using focus offsets, one after another. Just wanted to clarify that for you.

Yeah I get it, let me know if we can add confirmation dialog.

Hi Jasem,

Yes - please add the confirmation dialog.