I‘d like to shoot a timelapse of the lunar eclipse here on friday. Now there are a few thoughts that i am not sure of.

1. How can i get the moon in the middle of my view WITHOUT actually see the moon. What i want do is the moonrise. That means the first thing in the view would be mountains and the moon would be behind them. You can see what i mean in the picture.

2. When i set the mount control to „tracking“ will the moon stay in my picture-centre? Without guiding? I mean for about 3 hours?




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My few cents :

1. I believe that with a large enough fov, you can get proper alignment just by letting your mount slew to the designated target. If your fov is a few degrees, you could probably prepare your mount model the previous night and not reset it? This assuming there won't be stars when you start. If there are, align on a close one then slew to the Moon, will be spot on.

2. Lunar tracking rate in the INDI driver panel of the mount is what you need. This is where we'd need a surface guider feature to Ekos the algorithm exists, just needs a developer!

You can also plan (I will) to capture flat fields to automate your sequence. This will give you exposure control over the duration of the event. I don't remember if the capture tab honors the delay value when processing flats though.

-Eric

Thanx! So there IS a lunar rate setting. Wasn‘t sure about that.

Can you be more specific about the Flats?
I am not sure what they are good gor in this case.

You said you will do so. Does that mean your from somewhere in Europe?

Cheers, Niki


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I'm located in Britannia, France. Right now forecast is rain on 27th, between 4pm and 11pm. I admit I'm about to buy a new power supply for the setup. Maybe if I restrain...?

You can give an ADU target to flats in the capture tab. This is an awesome feature to control exposure of the Moon : configure a capture using say 25% of your dynamic range, and the software will automatically adjust exposure duration to match the requested mean value. Setup for 600 captures with a one-second delay, and you will get periodic captures over approx twenty to thirty minutes.

Of course, there are other solutions...

-Eric

Aaah. You mean instead of „normal“ periodic captures, i use the flat function and that would automatically set the right exposire when the moon gets darker and then lighter again, right? I think i will test the whole thing in the next days.
I wanted to solve this problem by using qdslr-dashboard and the integrated holy grail function.
I think i will try your solution first.

Another question bout the mount model: You wrote that i should build a new moung model the evening before. And not change or delete it then until friday. But how do i delete a mount model, and how NOT?

Is it deleted always when i park? Normally not, right?
Did you mean i should make a new Alignment the night before?
I have to tell you that i have a fixed location, i never take away my mount.

Cheers
Niki





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Because I don't have a fixed setup yet, I didn't studied the mount model feature. When I start an observation, my HEQ5 is parked and there are no alignment points written to the mount. As I proceed with alignment steps, new equivalences between RA/DEC and gear positions are stored. This is what you want to keep from one day to the other in order to slew at the right location before the Moon rises.

-Eric

Ok. I have to explain my way to do it. My Eq6-r is left on the same place all the time.
But after every session i park the mount, take away my telescope and cut the power.
So isn‘t it the same thing that you do?
What i almost NEVER do is make a alignment. I always thought that all the objects i goto and platesolve are „saved“, like i would have made a alignment. Is this NOT the case?

And IF i make a, say, 3-star alignment. How do i store this mountmodel until next day? Leave the power on? Or the whole system? Or just don‘t park the mount?

Cheers Niki


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Eric, thanks a lot for the hint with the Flats-setting! That is a great idea!

One hint for all who would like to use the feature though: The initial setting of 10000 tolerance does not make sense, I believe it is from the days when this module used absolute ADU, nowadays it uses percentages, so enter e.g. 25 and 1 for 25% ADU with 1% tolerance.

Niki, may I ask which software you use on your phone to get your landscape on it? I only now Observer Pro with such a feature, but yours looks different.

Thanks in advance

Amin

Hi Amin!

I use TPE 3D, an absolutely great App!

Cheers, Niki


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Another question:

I found the rate settings in the control Panel.
But there is only „sidereal“ or „custom“

But what is the lunar rate?

Cheers Niki


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About ADU tolerance, the value has an impact on the speed at which the algorithm is able to change the exposure duration. With default values for instance, I can't make dusk flats because the luminosity of the day is decreasing too quickly. So this requires testing.

I don't know what provides rates in the eqmod panel. I have both "sidereal" and "lunar", and probably a third one, "custom" perhaps.

About the alignment points, the model is refined each time a sync is done in the align tab. I don't know the details though, I was more interested in being able to delete those points properly when myself or a friend would make a mess of this it's been long since the dreaded zero-slew issue showed up on my setup. I suppose that if you sync points near your observation area, then return your mount near the pole without turning it off, that should be OK? You can also save and restore the align points I think, but I really didn't touch this much.

-Eric