Of course, you are right , Chris! Shows us what sleep deprivation is doing to our brains. When M33 was passing through the meridian it was at almost 88 degrees altitude. All I could remember the next morning was the AZ reading spinning like a compass at the North Pole.

Problem solved. I hang my head in shame.

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Has anybody else noticed the same issue?

It is possible that this is already fixed in the nightly version, if so, please let me know. If not, it might be worth looking whether the aberrant data impact on other functions of Ekos and could potentially cause some of the other problems I have been reading about here recently.

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The Azimuth in the Ekos dashboard is not calculated correctly. As the mount is approaching the meridian, the azimuth value shown in the dashboard decreases by 1 degree (!, not minute) every few seconds and continues to count down rapidly. Last night as I was collecting a whole night's worth of images on M33 it approached 249 degrees within a few minutes after flipping, then it reversed itself and started counting up towards 359 again. It did not affect the functioning of the mount or its ability to flip on time, but if you are keeping an eye on the azimuth to gauge when the mount should flip, it won't work.

Here the log from last night.

www.dropbox.com/s/otd7k2rq4h7orri/log_19-26-29.txt?dl=0

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I agree for the most part. The primary objective should be to put together a Wiki that lays out the overall strategy and a boiler plate approach to get basic images very quickly. That is the part where one loses new users fast. If the hurdles are too high or if there are too many bugs then people get frustrated and abandon EKOS. If success arrives quickly, that will boost excitement and keep them interested, Then they can be gradually introduced to the more complex steps including automation using the scheduler. I cannot stop emphasizing how important that is for me, who has a professional life and cannot afford prolonged sleep deprivation. That will be another sizeable fraction of future users, so a well functioning scheduler would be a HUGE attraction over any other more basic software that does not have that functionality.

Apart from that, I still think that Trevor would be a perfect conduit to get the word out. He has worked hard and put together a fantastic blog and YouTube channel that by now reaches 10s of thousands of people. Most of those may never have heard of EKOS or consider the entry effort too high. Those we have to reach and once there is a critical mass then word of mouth will do the rest. Currently, we do not yet have that critical mass.

Do not underestimate the power of advertising.

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I totally second that, jrsphoto! As a community, we should work on a manual for Indi/Ekos. Many of us made videos, but I completely agree with you, what I was missing at the beginning was a detailed manual on how to proceed to get my first images. After that, it got progressively easier and now I only need to keep up with the occasional changes and additions.
I also agree that in the absence of such a manual it would be difficult for Trevor to find the time to familiarize himself with the application. What might be helpful in this case is to provide a script, tailored to his equipment, where he only needs to polar align, focus, then turn on the equipment, start the script, enter the target, and exposure parameters and everything else happens automatically, including plate solving. That would surely be impressive. Since he only uses one-shot-color, that would be relatively easy, too.

The breakthrough for this software suite depends on advertising and usability. So better to provide an older version with less functionality, but one that is reliable, than a more recent one with bugs that still need to be resolved. He does not need much at his current stage, a scheduler that reliably flips and realigns on a single target would be enough to start with for now. Multiple targets can come later.

Also, remember that much of Trevor's time is taken up by equipment testing, blogging and YouTubing. That is a lot already next to his daytime job. So whatever he tries out better works the first time or we risk that he might lose interest.

Best
Jo

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A you running on "Limited Resources" mode?

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TallFurryMan wrote: I found a situation where the Scheduler might get hung doing nothing after a capture. I don't know if that could be what you experienced.

There is a "funny" bug, registered as bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=398301 , which makes all your captures attempts slew to the wall source position when you configure that option in the calibration pop-up for flat captures. The problem is that once this calibration option is set, it is saved with the sequence file, so it's very easy to unknowingly copy-paste the setting everywhere. If you don't readily spot it, this is disastrous for captures, of course.

In that situation, the Capture module doesn't send the notification of the end of the capture to the Scheduler, which hangs.

knro wrote: Hello everyone,

Yesterday, I was devastated to the loss of my two dogs. We've been together for years and I love them immensely. Unfortunately, they were lost yesterday due to heat stroke because of high humidity along with playing & exercise which turned out to be a deadly combination. Guilt overcame me and my heart was torn to see Juli & Tommy depart this world right in front of my eyes. I felt so helpless. There are no words to describe my attachment to them. A candle in my life is forever dark now.

I need time to grieve and recover so I am taking sometime off. Hopefully not too long. I appreciate your understanding of this matter. I hope no one goes through this pain. Rest in Peace my angels.