I'm interested in buying an Alnitak Flip-Flat Flat Fielder to automatically take flats, but is it possible to also use it to take darks? It would only require to flip the disk in front of the telescope, but not turn on the light

I understand that you guys were working on support for the Flip-Flat, and it was the first time I read about the existence of such a device, so I started wondering about it.

Taking flats and darks require me to go in to my observatory and do all sorts of changes to the system (dustcover, laying my flatfield on the telescope etc), so it would be great to have this automated.

your camera does not have shutter? Anyway, it is possible.

I'm using a Canon 1000D. It has a shutter yes. Is there a better way to take automated darks without putting the dustcap on the telescope that I don't know off? Really? Did I put the dustcap on every time without it being necessary? Omg

So i guess it's not working, or do I need a separate shutter cable for this to work? It's connected through USB right now.

That's the CCD telling you that because there is no shutter, you need to cover the camera which is the case. So if you have FlipFlat, the cover will close and then you will take your frames.

I dont think there is a way to take a frame using a canon dslr without opening the shutter. We always used a telescope cap when we were using dslr cameras.

So just to clear things up. If you're using DSLR with FlipFlat in Ekos, you can automate your darks and flats. Now there is still an issue with automated flats for DSLRs that I haven't yet addressed (hopefully on weekend).

That would be awesome... I struggle to find the right shutterspeed Automated would be best