Jasem,

I was experimenting the recording of the LiveView of my Canon DSLR, using the Live View window from the driver, and I got a bit confused by the results.
It happens that, if I leave the default FPS dropbox at 10FPS, the output SER file is recorded with 1FPS, besides the window display of Average FPS at 3FPS. Also, I noticed that the the exposure duration seems to be governed by the selected FPS and not the Exposure Duration(s) set on the driver configuration tab. If it's so, would it be possible to replace the FPS dropbox by a duration dropbox (like EOS Camera Movie Record does)?

Finally, could you confirm that the ISO setting from the driver configuration is already being used while capturing the Live View. I'm asking this because I couldn't notice an increase in brightness in the Live View when I increased the gain from 100 to 1600.

Regards,
Andre

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This offset issue with ASI178MM reminds me of the noise reduction done by Canon DSLRs, where the dark current behavior is odd .
It looks like all Sony EXMOR sensors have this non-linearity issue (due to the noise reduction they implemented?), requiring raising the offset value, according to this Cloudy Nights thread . But, they also suggest disabling the ampglow reduction feature, that I only found references for the QHY5III178M.
Do you know if the ZWO/ASI INDI driver has this ampglow reduction toggle?

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Hello,

I'd like to know which vendor provides an USB 3.0 camera based on Sony IMX178 sensor that works best with INDI (e.g., support for: sensor temperature reading, ROI, hardware binning, faster frame rates, 16-bit depth output, ADC bit depth adjustment).
The QHY5III178M is not described in the compatibility list for the QHY driver, and the old USB 2.0 ZWO cameras had many issues with "broken frames" (fixed with USB 3.0?).

Thanks,
Andre

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I was checking Micro Manager, and they provide binning by capturing frames and Live View in monochrome, besides the camera not being set to use this Picture Style.
Using it's Continuous (Live) View, with my 700D and MacBook Pro, I managed to get 10 FPS @ 960 x 640 8-bit, and binning 2x2, 4x4, or 8x8 didn't affect FPS.

Even only available in BW, I think monochrome binning via GPhoto would be valuable for Plate Solving speed boosting, and also for auto guiding, since it improves the signal to noise ratio (SNR).
But, unfortunately, if not supported by the camera firmware, binning won't increase the frame rate of the Live View, nor decrease readout/download time.

The only other implementation I know that features 3x3 binning in color is "crop_rec on steroids" module for Magic Lantern , and the "Crop mode recording (crop_rec.mo)" module (also for Magic Lantern) that enables 3x zoom . Both modules seem to work only for SD video recording (raw/h.264), using "MLV Lite movie recording" module for Magic Lantern .

So, it would be possible to have 3x3 binning and 3x zoom by hardware, but it would require an specific Magic Lantern module for Livew View and still captures, and its support by GPhoto.

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Jasem,

Sorry writing again, but I was searching for ways of including binning with GPhoto2, and I found that this Micro Manager software for microscopy (based on ImageJ, for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X) does support 1x1, 2x2, 4x4, and 8x8 binning via Photo , unfortunately, I couldn't yet check out how it does, but here's its guide on how to build from source on Ubuntu .
I think binning may improve a lot the Live View fps, Capturing download time, and Alignment/Plate Solving response time when using DSLRs.

Thanks,
Andre

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Hi Jasem,

I’m a big fan of INDI+Ekos (specially Ekos’ Align Module and INDI’s Alignment Subsystem), but I miss some features for planetary imaging that I used to have back on my Windows+ASCOM days, and I lost when I migrated to Mac OS X/Linux+INDI.

Here’s my Ekos feature request list for planetary imaging:
1- Capture Module: Include video file capture of SER files, and present a field for Duration (sec), besides Frame Count, as available as Record Options under Streaming tab of CCD drivers. Also provide an option for using WinJupos’ file naming convention for files: “yyyymmdd-hhmm[_][c]-Observer[-Info].ext”;
2- Guide Module: Include feature guiding to enable tracking of transits of interior planets and improving tracking of Lunar/Planetary features for impact detection, like Nudger does for lunar features , SharpCap does for Solar/Lunar/Planetary features , Dave’s Solar System Recorder (DSSR) does for Lunar Craters/Solar Spots and Prominences/Asteroids/Planetesimals/Sunspots/Comets , and FireCapture does for Planetary and Full Disk Lunar/Solar imaging ;
3- Guide Module: Enable guide using Alt-Az mounts, unfortunately Dave’s Solar System Recorder (DSSR) ( starrydave.com/?page_id=11 ) is the only one I know that does this;

Thanks,
Andre

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Jasem,

I was testing the actions tab with my 700D and I could only make eoszoom to work if I switched off the viewfinder option. Don't know if it's expected, but, sometimes, when I switch off viewfinder the stream turns black (having to restart the streaming to get it back), and sometimes not.
Also, unfortunately, only 5x seems to work with this model.

PS: I'm running the bleeding version on RPi.

Thanks,
Andre

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Jasem,

Have you tried getting 10x zoom, or only 5x zoom with your 600D? Which values of eoszoom you camera supports?
I'm asking this because it would be great to be able to be able to use the maximum zoom available (10x in this case) for focusing and close shots.

Thanks,
Andre

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Rob,

The issue was related to mac ports, since it installs the headers for libnova in /opt/local/include.
I had to change your configuration to:

if (APPLE)
##This one is needed for homebrew
include_directories( "/usr/local/include")
## This one is needed for Craft
include_directories("${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/include")
## This one is needed for mac ports
include_directories( "/opt/local/include")
endif(APPLE)

Thanks,
Andre

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Hello,

I'm trying to build the GPS NMEA driver on OS X (10.11.6), but I'm getting the following error:
"Scanning dependencies of target indi_gpsnmea
[ 33%] Building CXX object CMakeFiles/indi_gpsnmea.dir/gpsnmea_driver.cpp.o
.../indi/3rdparty/indi-gpsnmea/gpsnmea_driver.cpp:32:10: fatal error:
'libnova/julian_day.h' file not found
#include <libnova/julian_day.h>
^
1 error generated.
make[2]: *** [CMakeFiles/indi_gpsnmea.dir/gpsnmea_driver.cpp.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/indi_gpsnmea.dir/all] Error 2
make: *** [all] Error 2"

I checked and I have libnova-0.15.0 already installed, since it's used by the indilib itself.
It seems to be an issue with OS X, since I can build the library on Ubuntu Mate/RPi.

Thanks,
Andre

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Hello,

I'd like to suggest adding the support for the SAMP Virtual Observatory protocol into KStars, so it would be possible to integrate it with many other desktop research graded astronomy software , like Aladin , to send/receive coordinates updates, and also be able update the internal catalog using apps like TOPCAT .
For that, do you think it would be possible to implement it using an auxiliary INDI driver?

Thanks,
Andre

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Jasem,
This is great! Really handy for manual focusing!
The Preview from Ekos use the Streaming feature/tab from the Photo driver?
I'm asking this because I want to use the driver to capture planetary SER files for Lucky Imaging of the Live View frames of my DSLR.
Thanks,
Andre

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