To start with: It is unclear to me what is the best place to report issues on Ekos.

When doing a series of 5 minute images with the Altair 294C, after receiving and inspecting the third image I decided to leave it alone and change to parking time in the mount tab of Ekos. From that moment on the indilib driver proceeded handling the images as expected, but apparently Ekos did not see that images were ready, and where no longer saved. I suspect that after the change of parking time and restarting the countdown to parking time somehow lost a listener connection to the indilib ccd driver.

I see the following in my log file (in my own words):
t=0s image 3 ready and downloaded
t=3s start capturing of image 4
t=30s change of parking time to 4AM. (I also used to stop and play icon to restart the countdown timer at the mount tab).
t=303s image 4 ready event. upload form camera to computer
t=306s: nothing, but here the start of capturing image 5 should have been
t=423s ekos reports that image capture timed out and restarts the capture. Apparently a timeout function 120s after expected end of image 4.
t=423s start capturing image 5 (retake of 4)
t=543s ekos decides to stop the ccd indi driver and restart it. Is this a second 120s timeout to restart unwilling drivers? It timeout after start capture, not stop capture like the one before.
t=546s driver is restarted, but ekos crashes and exits now without further logging.

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Thanks Jasem, you are so much quicker than I can be in this!
I would indeed also go back to LCG below the threshold. And to HCG when >= threshold. Is it already on github? I will check. I can test it tonight if available. Looks like we will have some clear wheather.

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I am a happy user of the Altair Hypercam 294C Pro with Ekos/Indi. I can recommend this camera. The current driver does all it needs to do, except for one feature, which I like to discuss here:

There seem to be no support for HCG mode. And I am starting to understand that the driver needs to set this. I can give it a try to implement it in the driver. I see a few options:
1. Automatically enable it from gain 900. This is the way SharpCap Pro controls this setting.
2. Make it a HCG On/Off setting in the INDI driver panel.
3. Make it a HCG-enable-from-gain numeric setting. The driver will set it automatically when gain is at or above the given gain threshold.

Option 1 has the upside of easy of use, but obvious downside that the driver needs to test on the camera type. Not really generic. Option 2 has the downside that one would forget to change it when modifying gain settings in Ekos. Option 3 is still generic and convenient. Obviously my preference. It looks like the camera api has a function to see whether the camera has conversion gain capabilities. So the setting could be made conditional possibly. I may need some help from the experts possibly.

Please advice on the need for HCG and the preferred implementation.

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Hi all,

I am new here and new with kstars/ekos/indi. I have some success with connecting an old Meade ETX105EC and a ZWO CCD. I am now trying my EOS M6 and that fails to capture images through INDI. My older EOS 450D worked first time, but that is a large mirror shake for the small ETX.

I believe that the issues might by in libgphoto2 with bulb mode. The is a lot of intended communication going on between INDI and the M^. Only capture fails. I have set my camera to dail: M, shutter time to BULB and focus to manual focus.

Now my question is:
Is there a way to avoid using BULB mode in INDI? As capture with gphoto2 works if I do not select bulb=1.
Maybe my attempts not to use bulb have failed due to other settings?

I already have submitted an issue at libgphoto2: github.com/gphoto/libgphoto2/issues/493

I have made detailed loggings from kstar/indi of failure scenario's. I will attach more soon.

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Thanks Alex. I checked, and the M6 is producing CR2 raws. Further checks that I did with gphoto2 seem to indicate that the setting of properties like ISO value and shutterspeed fail, before the actual capture takes place. This could be a tricky USB timing issue that only occurs for me on the HP laptop with Ubuntu I am using. My camera kind of crashes, as it takes 20-30 seconds and turning off/on twice before it recovers.

SevenW

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Hi all,

I am new here and new with kstars/ekos/indi. I have some success with connecting an old Meade ETX105EC and a ZWO CCD. I am now trying my EOS M6 and that fails to capture images through INDI. My older EOS 450D worked first time, but that is a large mirror shake for the small ETX.

I believe that the issues might by in libgphoto2 with bulb mode. The is a lot of intended communication going on between INDI and the M^. Only capture fails. I have set my camera to dail: M, shutter time to BULB and focus to manual focus.

Now my question is:
Is there a way to avoid using BULB mode in INDI? As capture with gphoto2 works if I do not select bulb=1.
Maybe my attempts not to use bulb have failed due to other settings?

I already have submitted an issue at libgphoto2: github.com/gphoto/libgphoto2/issues/493

I have made detailed loggings from kstar/indi of failure scenario's. I will attach more soon.

Read More...