×

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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Ekos previews

  • Posts: 217
  • Thank you received: 19

Replied by JuergenN on topic Ekos previews

Steve, regarding Highlights, Midlights and Lowlights I would keep the Automatic Setting on (this is the button right from "highlights"). In the case in your picture everything is on "0", this leads to a white picture.

Regarding exposure time: I made sometimes the experience if the setting is too low I get no good results. Try 0.01s instead of 0.001s, but play with it, since it always depends on setup. Gain I would set for daytime photography to 0 or 1.

Regarding focus: Hy is right, that it might be, that it is not possible to get into focus with your camera with your current setup. Maybe you need some extensions. To check that it would be a possibility to point your telescope at the moon (or try it with the mountains, that should work too) and hold a white paper behind the scope. Remove the camera and eyepiece, so nothing should be in the focuser. Move the paper back and forth until you see a sharp picture on the paper. In that distance the camera sensor should be.

I would first check the exposure time / gain. If you get there a reasonable (maybe unfocused but good exposed picture) result you can then go on with the focus. You can watch the focus getting better or worth when moving the camera in or out and then you can see if you may need extensions or not.

In principle its easy but long to describe and for a beginner it is sometimes a little bit confusing ;-)
1 year 4 months ago #88491

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 185
  • Thank you received: 7

Replied by Steve Cohen on topic Ekos previews


Thanks! Progress has been made!



However, why is the mountain upside down? EKos seems to default to this. And no, it's not that the camera is upside down. It isn't. In fact, I found that CCDCiel, with its larger window was a better way to dial in the original approximate daylight focus. CCDCiel makes the image right-side up. I found the "flip vertical" option but this only worked for completed previews. If I tried that option in a preview loop, it would always go back to upside down. Is there a way to make right-side up the default?

Also, CCDCiel allows debayering in the preview. It's not very good, the colors are off, but there's something. I did not find such an option in KStars.

Anyway, I will be eager to try observing in the night sky with this setup. I hope the focus will be good enough. It's still not great.
1 year 4 months ago #88520
Attachments:

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 185
  • Thank you received: 7

Replied by Steve Cohen on topic Ekos previews

In spite of my earlier semi-success with obtaining focus during daylight, at night it's still the same mess.

Leaving this focus untouched, I have pointed the scope vaguely at the direction of Mars. But all I get is this grainy indistinguishable mess. Tried playing with gain and exposure settings but to no avail. Every once in awhile I do so see some poorly focused "donut" crossing this screen indicating a poorly focused object but it moves quickly across the preview loop before I have a chance to try and focus it better. I can only surmise it represents an airplane. How do I finish focusing the scope at night and for what exposure?
1 year 4 months ago #88526
Attachments:

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 217
  • Thank you received: 19

Replied by JuergenN on topic Ekos previews

If you are in focus at daytime you may have to correct the focus when photographing the stars, because at that big focal length 3km is not infinity. So if you saw some donuts: these should be the stars. Try to focus the donuts and you will see stars. Set the exposure time and gain that you can see the donuts.

Dont you have tracking on your 4se?
1 year 4 months ago #88531

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 185
  • Thank you received: 7

Replied by Steve Cohen on topic Ekos previews


Thanks agiain, Juergen.

What do you mean by tracking? If the scope is aligned you can make it go to any visible target the software knows about, and it will stay on that target as it moves. Is that what you mean by tracking?

As for focusing on the donuts, these particular donuts were appearing at irregular intervals on the screen, for maybe five or six previews, moving across the screen each time, which made me think they were airplanes. I could never see any donuts that stayed fixed in location on the screen.

Also, do you know why my mountain picture was flipped upside down? And whether the focus quality of that picture would have been sufficient for alignment?
1 year 4 months ago #88556

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 114
  • Thank you received: 17

Replied by Alan Archer on topic Ekos previews

Steve,
The mountain is upside down because of the way the optics in the telescope work.
Try this. Set everything up camera, scope and mount.
To get the scope aligned first using the normal visual method with the eyepiece, remove the camera from the scope but do not disconnect it from the Pi.
Place the eyepiece into the scope and align it using your normal method

Once aligned and tracking the stars well, add the camera to the scope and try to focus then.

Failing that because it's a single arm fork mount. I'd put it on a wedge and use it in equatorial mode. That way you could get a rough pre alignment with a compass and inclinometer and it would track well enough to achieve focus. There's a picture of it with a rod type wedge on the Celestron info.

There's also a big thread on here about using AZ mounts in Equitorial mode in the link. Although it's a different mount you should get a basic idea of what's required from this. stargazerslounge.com/topic/387014-skywat...mount-owners-thread/

Also, if there's a local astronomy club nearby it may be worth a visit and I'm very sure they will be able to help you get the basics sorted out.

Thanks

Alan
1 year 4 months ago #88563
Attachments:

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 155
  • Thank you received: 12

Replied by Nigel Dunmore on topic Ekos previews

Hi

I’ve got an sv305 camera (on my guide scope) and I’ve found using Astrodmx in its auto mode a good way of getting things exposing right as you try and focus.

One thing I’ve found which feels counter intuitive but makes sense is that you can easily over expose things (not entirely sure why this happens) and the fits viewer shows what seems to be a blank screen. In the fits viewer try seeing what the stats say - you shouldn’t have a medium value at 16384 ie the same as the maximum.

With my f/7 210mm focal length guide scope I use exposures of 1 or 2 seconds and a gain setting of 300 to 400 (this is in the indi driver) and I turn the stretch to 16 bits in the indi driver off. Everything else is at the default. I also find phd2 a bit easier than ekos for getting things in focus and as I’m doing guiding with that having had a fallout with the internal guiding I’ve got that running anyway.

Regards

Nigel
1 year 4 months ago #88574

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 185
  • Thank you received: 7

Replied by Steve Cohen on topic Ekos previews

(deleted by author, software is not allowing me to selectively quote what I want to quote.)
Last edit: 1 year 4 months ago by Steve Cohen.
1 year 4 months ago #88585

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 185
  • Thank you received: 7

Replied by Steve Cohen on topic Ekos previews


Alan:

I feel fairly certain that you are wrong about the inverting being due to the telescope optics.

The reason I can say this is that, with nothing changed about the scope, its focus and what it is pointing at, with the camera in and connected to my Rasberry Pi, I can take a preview with the program CCDCiel and the mountain is shown right-side up. Then, I exit CCDCiel and start EKos and do a preview. The mountain is shown upside-down. This tells me that there is either a bug in EKos, or, much more likely, a setting in EKos that I don't know about which is inverting the image. I would like to know what that setting might be. Or possibly, CCDCiel is automatically inverting the image to make it right-side up, and EKos is not.
1 year 4 months ago #88586

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 298
  • Thank you received: 46

Replied by Markku on topic Ekos previews

Hi all,

Well, let's clear up the issue with upsidedown images.
I don't think there is a bug in KStars FITSviewer, it's just a matter of camera rotation and propably how the image is read from the camera, it could be different for other cameras but i use only SX cameras so I really don't know, in my case I usually rotate my camera upsidedown.
I made some screenshots to show how my SX camera displays images.
Images show the result from different resolves by name of the image so you can compare and come to a conclusion, please take a look.

1 year 4 months ago #88590
Attachments:

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 114
  • Thank you received: 17

Replied by Alan Archer on topic Ekos previews

Steve,

On the inverted image, if you were using a refractor telescope the image is the correct way up, because the 4SE is a Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope the image will appear inverted in EKOS fits viewer.

If you have access to a refractor telescope, try it and you'll see the difference.

Thanks

Alan
1 year 3 months ago #88606

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • Posts: 185
  • Thank you received: 7

Replied by Steve Cohen on topic Ekos previews


Thank you, Markku (and also Alan). I didn't really think this was a bug but it remains true that the CCDCiel program somehow knows to invert the image to right side up, or maybe it's just dumb luck. Perhaps it knows something about the telescope being used and makes the adjustment. Is this a feature worth asking for? For now, I can just invert the camera, I suppose. Now I have to worry about focus which was my original purpose in starting this thread.
1 year 3 months ago #88610

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Time to create page: 0.887 seconds