Ok, now the speed does something, but not what is expected hehehe.

Speed 1 and 3 don't work, but 0 and 2 work. 0 sets small movements, 2 large movements. But, 0 goes always in one direction (doesn't matter whether out/in button is pressed) and 2 in the opposite direction (always).

0 moves to focus further distances, 2 moves to focus nearer distances.

can you post the "Setting Focuser Speed to ##" debug output?

Ok, I was wrong with speed=3, it actually moves the focus, but always IN.

Here you have a mix of IN/OUT commands at different 'speeds'.

2014-01-25T20:15:54: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus 0 -> Far 1
2014-01-25T20:15:54: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus 0 -> Far 1
2014-01-25T20:15:57: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus 0 -> Far 1
2014-01-25T20:15:57: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus 0 -> Far 1
2014-01-25T20:16:23: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -1 -> None
2014-01-25T20:16:30: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -1 -> None
2014-01-25T20:16:31: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -1 -> None
2014-01-25T20:16:34: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -2 -> Near 3
2014-01-25T20:16:34: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -2 -> Near 3
2014-01-25T20:16:37: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -3 -> Near 2
2014-01-25T20:16:37: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -3 -> Near 2
2014-01-25T20:16:41: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -3 -> Near 2
2014-01-25T20:16:41: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -3 -> Near 2
2014-01-25T20:16:43: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -3 -> Near 2
2014-01-25T20:16:43: Driver indi_gphoto_ccd: manual focus -3 -> Near 2

Sorry this issue is fixed now. Another question unrelated to this, is there a way to figure out the pixel size of DSLRs? For now I just hard code them to 5 microns, is there a standard size or "close" to one at least?

I will check the new fix soon.

Regarding to DSLRs' pixel size, I'm not sure if gphoto2 can give it as an output. In any case, sensors sizes (and thus the pixel size) will vary from one brand to other. The good news are that the sensor sizes tend to be more 'standarized' nowadays that they used to be.

For example, the vast amount of canon cameras (low-end cameras in fact, those X0D, XY0D and XY00D models, the ones that are not full-frame) used in astrophotography use an APS-C sensor, which has like 22,2 mm x 14,8 or 22,3 mm x 14,9 mm.

Nikon uses a bit larger sensors 23,7 mm x 15,6 mm - 23,6 mm x 15,8 mm.

With this on mind, an taking the resolution in pixels of a given camera, you can obtain the pixel size easily.

There are also full-frame cameras (with sensors of 36x24mm) and also APS-H (with intermediate sizes). But I would say that people usually use APS-C sensors normally in astronomy. They have a large enough sensor, they weight a lot less than full-frame bodies and they cost only a very small fraction of a full-frame body.

And the vast majority of people prefer Canon for astronomical work (Nikon used to apply some algorithms to remove noise that at daytime work very well, but at night time they remove also small stars from their 'raw' images).

4-5 microns is pretty close to the standard used in astronomy nowadays. If you need an approximate value, 5 microns is fine I think.

It isn't fixed yet, hehe.

At speed 0, both IN/OUT move the focuser OUT only slightly.
At speed 1, only OUT works (as expected).

2014-01-26T15:02:12: Setting focuser speed to -1 [IN, doesn't work]
2014-01-26T15:02:09: Setting focuser speed to 1 [OUT, works]

At speed 2, both works (pretty fast!, fine for coarse focusing, but useless after that).
At speed 3, only IN works (slower than speed 2 though). OUT

2014-01-26T15:04:27: Focusing failed: could not get widget choice 5: -2 [if I select OUT, it gives this error]
2014-01-26T15:04:27: Setting focuser speed to 3 [OUT, doesn't work]
2014-01-26T15:03:58: Setting focuser speed to -3 [IN, works]

I'm afraid I can't do much since I am simply using a function from libgphoto2

It's in gphoto_driver.c (line 1036), so if you or someone else familiar with GPhoto and Nikon cameras can take a look at that, it would be great.

Ok, don't worry Jasem .

I'll try to get it working, all I need is some free time to look into the code hehe. I'm currently very busy with work, but I will give it a look at some point .

I will need to improve also the 'preview' mode (using the liveview of those cameras, in order to speed the focusing / framing part without burning the mechanical shutter) and correct the raw->fits conversion.

Hi knro,

Here you have a small patch that fixes two things:

dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/wqtu5k3yzp68...inaya_20140511.patch

One is the focus direction issue. Now, the speed is correctly set through the Focus tab and also (3 speeds, in both directions). The 'fix' is just a workaround, it's a bit ugly but it works .

The other thing I fixed is the 'movement pulse duration'. Gphoto does not accept pulses of variable duration, they are fixed. So all we can do is to say 'move 10 times IN at speed 2'. I changed it so now we use pulses. There's a small minor issue that I don't manage to fix.

The default value of 1000ms is just too large (it would mean 1000 steps/movements). With this approach of 'steps', it would be better to set the default value to '1' (move just 1 step).

I also implemented the changes from Max:
www.indilib.org/forum/general/276-how-to...driver.html?start=12

I'm getting 404 error from dropbox, can you simply attach the file here?

No problem

Excellent, regarding the timer 1000ms, can we have a conversion ratio between timer and actual number of steps? like 5 steps in 1000ms or something similar?