After getting to better understand my ASI1600MM-Cooled it seems it would be desirable to select a Gain/Offset/Bit -Rate from within the Ekos Control panel (like the ISO selection feature) rather than having to change the settings manually in the Indi Control Panel.

Whilst Gain and Bit rate are recorded in the FITs header it would also be nice to have the Offset (which I guess is in some way linked to BSCALE) recorded there also.

It would be great to be able to set gain/offset in the sequencer. I'm now using higher gain (and corresponding offset) for RGB vs L to keep exposure times around the same since binning desn't offer much advantage on these cameras like it does for CCD. That would then make it possible to interleave LRGB images.

You mean Ekos capture module? There is already a gain setting there.

The gain is there, but with the CMOS cameras like the ASI, gain and offset really are a set that changes together. For example, with my 1600, a gain of 139 and offset of 21 is considered the "unity" setting, but for full dynamic range, the setting is 0 gain and 10 offset.

If space is a premium, and it does seem to be the case for many, if the ASI driver is in use, the ISO field is not used. Might it be possible to re-purpose this field and its label? Merge the ISO and gain slot as those two things largely have the same purpose depending on the camera technology. Then offset can take the space where gain is today?

This won't work, what if a camera has ISO + Gain + Offset ...etc? At any rate, I implemented a solution, I removed Gain setting and replaced it with a new setting: Custom Properties. So using Custom Properties, you can set any number of properties in the sequence from the list of available numeric properties, but you have to set it first in INDI Control Panel, then "record" it in the sequence then proceed as normal. It should be in v2.8.1 due some time next week.

When I try to adjust Gain or Brighness (=Offset) with the slider or the spinner it moves in quite large increments. I'm guessing they both move in steps of 10% of the range. I tried to manually enter a value in the input field but it would not edit. Can the spinner be made to move in single units or allow manual editing?

You can edit all of them directly.

So if I am understanding correctly. I set the gain, offset, etc... in the Indi control panel, then choose "controls" in the Custom Properties. Now when I add an entry to my sequence it will use the gain, offset, etc... settings I set in the Indi control panel.

Exactly

And if I want to correct a wrong setting on a job is this the right procedure?:
Double click the job to go into edit mode
Enter correct settings in Control Panel
Click Custom Properties
Click Apply (since the control group is already selected)

By the way, for ASI owners, the Offest is labelled Brightness
Also, my earlier issue is resolved and I can edit the numbers. I suspect it was something to do with not having 12V power to the camera. The camera works without 12V but appears to be less stable.
As another related question (still learning all the features in Ekos): I want to set up a sequence of LLRGB that repeats with different gain/offset for L vs RGB. So I set up the sequence with 4 items (with L having a count of 2). So I guess I then set up the Scheduler to run the whole sequence, say, 50 times?

Last night I tried out the ASI071 for first time, with 80-500 Apo. Not sure if the issue I experienced is a bug or a matter of poor parameter setting:

If I chose the default settings (controls), with gain = 0 and brightness = 8, I only get a fits-picture with stars being visible if exposure is greater then 30 sec. If I set exposure to e.g. 29 seconds, I only get a fits picture that is essentially black (not a hint of any star). Same happens if I increase the gain to 20, and brightness =48, I get a picture with visible if exposure is at minimum 4.3 sec, if I reduce the exposure to 4.2 or change the brightness to 40, I get a black picture. I.e. there is not an incremental change of the picture. Somehow looks like there is a sort of threshold, below which the picture becomes "black".

Btw: If I set the parameters for the AIS071 for long exposure, how can I do the auto-focusing - would assume for auto-focusing, with e.g. 0.5 sec exposure, I would chose different parameters?

Update: After analysing the pictures in FITSWORK, I realize that also the "black" picture has all the information, after stretching the histogram, stars became visible. Could it be the case that I need to uncheck the flag for autostretching in the FITS settings in EKOS?

Many thanks in advance for any support!

Helge

Quick update, seems like my first pictures suffered from far too low gain/offset for the short exposure times that I was running. So clearly no bug, but the user...

Looking at the histogram (or statistics) as provided by the Fits viewer, I wonder if there is an expected range of frequency/intensity, if the gain and offset settings are within a reasonable range, for short and long exposure times?

One more question, if I was setting the gain and offset in the Control Panel for longer exposures, do. I need to change those parameters if I wanted to run the autofocuser?