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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Flats and dark flats job wizard - no pause

  • Posts: 155
  • Thank you received: 12
Hi
I’m just at the point in my learning curve where I’m trying to improve my calibration frames.

From what I can tell for a cmos based camera (in my case a sony a7rii) I need darks, flats and dark flats (rather than biases). So I’ve got myself a light panel and have used the flats wizard to take flats around 8000 adu. Camera is 14 bit so I believe I need to have values around that and the frames captured seem ok.

Having done that I thought I would get the other wizard on the capture tab to add dark flats to the job queue after I’ve added flats. It works adds the dark flats to the queue, then I set it going, it works out the exposure takes the flats and immediately starts taking the dark flats. However there is no pause between the two to enable me to make things dark.

Is there some way of putting in a pause between the two jobs ? Or is there something I’m missing?

Regards

Nigel
1 year 8 months ago #84021

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EKOS usually asks to cover the optics if the camera doesn't have a shutter. An DSLR obviously has one. Have you checked if yours does open the shutter in dark mode? It probably doesn't.
1 year 8 months ago #84023

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You can add a "Pre-job script" to the flat darks. Create a file call it delay.sh

#!/bin/bash

sleep 5
exit 0

save it and chmod +x to mark it as executable and select it. Change 5 seconds to whatever value you like. I think I need to add regular delays the script editor as well so this script won't be necessary.
1 year 8 months ago #84024

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Yes, general delay and maybe a stop (opening a modal to click to continue) sounds great!

However, I just tried this using the Simulator, but I can only define one script that will be valid for all sequences in that run - am I doing something wrong?
1 year 8 months ago #84027

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@Peter I’ve wondered about that in the past and for some reason didn’t think it kept the shutter closed. Will have a play as that would be great.

@Jasem If Peters suggestion doesn’t pan out I will give that a go. Couldn’t the dark flats just follow the same type of process that darks follow and ask to cover the telescope? NB I currently tend to set things to take a batch of images and then sit and wait rather than set up a whole set of things so I’m not sure if that happens with darks when there’s a set of jobs

Thanks

Nigel
1 year 8 months ago #84028

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ok just tried taking darks, dark flats and biases and didn’t get a single prompt to cover my camera lens. I’m sure I have in the past.
The camera took all the images using the shutter. The biases at an automatic speed supposedly of a blistering 1/32000 which I would have thought is faster than the camera can go.
Tried doing darks using the dark library with the same result.

The indi device log gave a warning saying my camera had no shutter and I needed to cover it.
1 year 8 months ago #84030

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I have just noticed the same issue when using sequence tool.
I get a warning for the flats to cover the lens (with a 1min count down) but nothing for dark or dark flats.
It also fires the shutter for all images.

The option for non lit and lit dust covers seem to make no difference either.
1 year 3 months ago #88609

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Thank you for the report. We are aware of this issue and hopefully it will be fixed before 3.6.2 is released in a couple of days.
1 year 3 months ago #88615

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I pushed a fix to GIT. It would be great if someone can verify it works.
1 year 3 months ago #88621

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Hi,
There are still issues with this in 3.6.2.
There is still no pause for Darks or `dark flats.

Ran the following sequence.
2 x Lights
2 x Dark
2 x Flat
2 x Dark Flat

At the start of the sequence get a warning to remove the dust cover with a 60 sec timer
Takes the 2 light frames
Takes the 2 Dark frames
Get a pop up saying to illuminate the lens with a 60 second timer
Takes the 2 flats
Takes the 2 dark flats.

The flat calibration settings were both set to manual.
Setting the calibration to dust cover with external light passes straight through the sequence with no pop up for illumination.

As a side note, the 60 sec timer would be better replaced if possible with an infinite timer as if the telescope is remote it may take longer than 60 seconds to get to and prepare the covers.

I am very new to this and my next challenge to to work out how to use the GIT hub so I may test any updates as you requested previously.

Thanks very much
Greg
1 year 3 months ago #88804

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I tested now and it works fine. It could be one of two things:

1. Check calibration options and make sure light source is set to MANUAL.
2. Perhaps you selected that your camera has a mechanical shutter so it tries to use that and not ask for cover. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to edit this, you need to edit ~/.config/kstarsrc file and look for "ShutterfulCCDs" key and remove your camera from there if that was the case.
1 year 3 months ago #88807

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