Thanks!
I have been so blind! Even after knowing where to look, it took quite some time to find it! No idea why...

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Hi,
Previously, I've been setting limits to re-focus on temperature change of 1.0° during capture sequences.
I think that this worked well, until I switched my main camera from a DSLR to a cooled astro camera.
Now, the capture sequence seems to read the temperature sensor of the camera, instead of the one in the focusser (ZWO EAF).
As this is a cooled camera, this temperature essentially never changes, so it can not trigger a re-focus.

Is there a way to select the temperature sensor to read from for the focus limits?

CS, Steffen

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I had the same problem. Focus aborted by the meridian flip, which in turn then aborted the capture sequence.
In addition to just ABORTING the focus, couldn't the meridian flip schedule a re-focus after the flip is finished?

I'm afraid, just resuming the old focus position will not be sufficient in my case, as driving to absolute positions is very unreliable for me. It would be perfect, if auto-focus would just start after the flip. And even in that case, It would really depend on the current focus position being not too far off (after the aborted focus attempt).

Steffen

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In my opinion, these are two different problems, and yes, solving both would be great

1. don't abort capture when focusing fails, especially when the focuser was not touched at all
2. don't allow a user to start capturing with auto-focus enabled when auto-focus is not possible because of focus settings
   It's better to get an error message right away, than after one hour (or whenever focusing would be scheduled)

Thanks Ron and DerPit for your replies and help.
Now I know that I have to let EKOS auto select the focus star, that's fine.

I had already tried focusing with full field. But in my experience it didn't work as good as single star. I think that EKOS was picking up a different set of stars each time, and therefore the average HFR value was very noisy and did not result in a smooth V-curve. With single star focusing, I get a nice V-curve, and together with the linear algorithm, focusing works nicely. Maybe I have to tweak the star detection settings.

One thing to improve:
When the user starts capturing (pressing "Play" on the sequence queue of the capture module) and has automatic re-focusing enabled while automatic focusing is not possible, please show a warning message! The user can then decide to skip auto re-focusing, or change the auto-focus settings.

Regards,
Steffen

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Hi,
Recently, I tried to use automatic focusing during a capture sequence in EKOS.
I set it up to re-focus every 60 minutes. Then I setup my capturing sequence (exposure time, number of exposures, etc.) and started capturing.

In my focus settings, I had disabled automatic focus-star selection. That's why I focused before starting the sequence.
Also, right at the beginning of the capture sequence, there was a meridian flip.
To make sure that EKOS would have a focus star after the flip, I paused the capture sequence and focused (selecting a focus star manually, focusing automatically).

Then I let the capture sequence run and went to bed.

In the morning, I found that EKOS had aborted the capture sequence, as it wanted to auto-focus, but complained that no focus star was selected. So I missed several hours of exposure

My question is: what is the best practice for automatic focusing during capture sequences?
Do I have to enable automatic star selection?
Can I manually select a star before capturing, and will the manual star selection stay valid after a meridian flip?

Also, I think EKOS could have handled the situation better:
It should not allow me to enable focusing every X minutes when the auto focus settings don't allow auto focusing.
It should not abort capturing when it can't focus. I would rather have had some images with slightly imperfect focus, than none at all.

Any ideas?

Best Regards,
Steffen

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