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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Polar alignment issue (CCD exposure in progress!!)

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I love the polar alignment wizard, but recently have been having an issue with taking the three images. The very first time I start it, the image seems to be 1s exposure regardless of what I have set, so I stop and restart, then the exposure is the correct length.
The 1st exposure is then solved and the mount moves. The 2nd exposure is then started, but always fails with "Cannot capture while CCD exposure is in progress. Retrying in 10 seconds...". Some times it does continue in about 10s, but most of the time it is a lot longer, a couple of minutes or more. Then once this has actually got an image and solved, I get the same for the third image.
At this point all I have done is start kstars, connected to my equipment profile, gone to polar alignment, selected my guide scope and set the exposure to 3s. No other cameras are taking images to the best of my knowledge.

Apologises for lack of debug information, but I cant find the post that tells me what to supply. I swear I have seen one some where?!

Anyway, here is the log for polar alignment

2019-11-13T18:12:07 Cannot capture while CCD exposure is in progress. Retrying in 10 seconds...
2019-11-13T18:12:06 Mount second rotation is complete.
2019-11-13T18:11:54 Please wait until mount completes rotating to RA (00h 00m 22s) DE ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T18:11:54 Solution coordinates: RA (16h 51m 18s) DEC ( 88° 47' 07") Telescope Coordinates: RA (02h 00m 22s) DEC ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T18:11:54 Solver completed in 6 seconds.
2019-11-13T18:11:48 Starting solver...
2019-11-13T18:11:48 Image received.
2019-11-13T18:11:42 Capturing image...
2019-11-13T17:55:43 Cannot capture while CCD exposure is in progress. Retrying in 10 seconds...
2019-11-13T17:55:41 Mount first rotation is complete.
2019-11-13T17:55:31 Please wait until mount completes rotating to RA (01h 46m 21s) DE ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T17:55:31 Solution coordinates: RA (16h 26m 01s) DEC ( 88° 59' 34") Telescope Coordinates: RA (03h 46m 21s) DEC ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T17:55:31 Solver completed in 6 seconds.
2019-11-13T17:55:24 Starting solver...
2019-11-13T17:55:24 Image received.
2019-11-13T17:55:15 Capturing image...
2019-11-13T17:55:15 Clearing mount Alignment Model...
2019-11-13T17:55:15 Warning: Equatorial Grid Lines will not be drawn due to limited resources mode.
2019-11-13T17:55:00 Parking the mount...
2019-11-13T17:47:31 Cannot capture while CCD exposure is in progress. Retrying in 10 seconds...
2019-11-13T17:47:30 Mount first rotation is complete.
2019-11-13T17:47:19 Please wait until mount completes rotating to RA (01h 38m 06s) DE ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T17:47:19 Solution coordinates: RA (16h 17m 56s) DEC ( 88° 59' 37") Telescope Coordinates: RA (03h 38m 06s) DEC ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T17:47:19 Solver completed in 9 seconds.
2019-11-13T17:47:09 Starting solver...
2019-11-13T17:47:09 Image received.
2019-11-13T17:47:02 Capturing image...
2019-11-13T17:47:02 Clearing mount Alignment Model...
2019-11-13T17:47:02 Warning: Equatorial Grid Lines will not be drawn due to limited resources mode.
2019-11-13T17:46:40 Parking the mount...
2019-11-13T17:46:40 Refresh is complete.
2019-11-13T17:46:32 Cannot capture while CCD exposure is in progress. Retrying in 10 seconds...
2019-11-13T17:43:16 Cannot capture while CCD exposure is in progress. Retrying in 10 seconds...
2019-11-13T17:42:31 Mount axis is to the Bottom Left of the celestial pole
2019-11-13T17:42:31 WCS data processing is complete.
2019-11-13T17:42:29 Please wait while WCS data is processed...
2019-11-13T17:42:29 Solution coordinates: RA (15h 27m 46s) DEC ( 87° 14' 11") Telescope Coordinates: RA (23h 55m 06s) DEC ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T17:42:29 Solver completed in 6 seconds.
2019-11-13T17:42:23 Starting solver...
2019-11-13T17:42:23 Image received.
2019-11-13T17:42:16 Capturing image...
2019-11-13T17:40:16 Cannot capture while CCD exposure is in progress. Retrying in 10 seconds...
2019-11-13T17:40:15 Mount second rotation is complete.
2019-11-13T17:40:04 Please wait until mount completes rotating to RA (23h 40m 29s) DE ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T17:40:04 Solution coordinates: RA (15h 24m 29s) DEC ( 87° 25' 38") Telescope Coordinates: RA (01h 40m 29s) DEC ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T17:40:04 Solver completed in 8 seconds.
2019-11-13T17:39:56 Starting solver...
2019-11-13T17:39:56 Image received.
2019-11-13T17:39:51 Capturing image...
2019-11-13T17:38:51 Cannot capture while CCD exposure is in progress. Retrying in 10 seconds...
2019-11-13T17:38:50 Mount first rotation is complete.
2019-11-13T17:38:39 Please wait until mount completes rotating to RA (01h 29m 01s) DE ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T17:38:39 Solution coordinates: RA (15h 14m 43s) DEC ( 87° 35' 34") Telescope Coordinates: RA (03h 29m 01s) DEC ( 90° 00' 00")
2019-11-13T17:38:39 WCS information updated. Images captured from this point forward shall have valid WCS.
2019-11-13T17:38:39 Solver completed in 6 seconds.
2019-11-13T17:38:32 Starting solver...
2019-11-13T17:38:32 Image received.
2019-11-13T17:38:28 Capturing image...
2019-11-13T17:37:59 Cannot capture while CCD exposure is in progress. Retrying in 10 seconds...
2019-11-13T17:37:59 Clearing mount Alignment Model...
2019-11-13T17:37:59 Warning: Equatorial Grid Lines will not be drawn due to limited resources mode.
2019-11-13T17:35:43 Parking the mount...
2019-11-13T17:35:28 Solver failed. Try again.
2019-11-13T17:35:20 Starting solver...
2019-11-13T17:35:20 Index files index-4203 to index-4209 are missing. Astrometry.net would not be able to adequately solve plates until you install the missing index files. Download the index files from www.astrometry.net
2019-11-13T17:35:20 Image received.
2019-11-13T17:35:20 Capturing image...
2019-11-13T17:35:18 Changing filter to Luminance...
2019-11-13T17:35:18 Clearing mount Alignment Model...
2019-11-13T17:35:18 Warning: Equatorial Grid Lines will not be drawn due to limited resources mode.
2019-11-13T17:35:10 Detected Astrometry.net version 0.76
2019-11-13T17:34:13 World Coordinate System (WCS) is enabled. CCD rotation must be set either manually in the CCD driver or by solving an image before proceeding to capture any further images, otherwise the WCS information may be invalid.
2019-11-13T17:34:12 Idle.
Last edit: 4 years 4 months ago by Alan Townshend. Reason: updated log file
4 years 4 months ago #45771

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I've just seen the logs button on the front page of Ekos, so getting some now...
4 years 4 months ago #45773

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File Attachment:

File Name: log_18-46-55.txt
File Size:51 KB
This got to the point of adjusting the bolts, but image was not updating.
4 years 4 months ago #45774
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I have this on Windows client (always. since I started using the procedure almost a year ago) - reported several times.
RPI client works fine in this respect.
-- Max S
ZWO AM5. RST-135. AZ-GTI. HEQ5. iOptron SkyTracker.
TPO RC6. FRA400. Rokinon 135 and other lenses.
ZWO ASI2600MC. D5500 modified with UVIR clip-in filter.
ZWO ASI120MM Mini x 2. ZWO 30F4 guider. Orion 50mm guider.
ZWO EAF x 2.
4 years 4 months ago #45792

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Updated KStars (Windows) from 3.3.7 mid-October (not official build) to 3.3.7 Nov 13 (official release). All of a sudden Polar Alignment worked as it should!
Great!
Again, it was working well on RPI client but acting up on Windows client. At least for me.
-- Max S
ZWO AM5. RST-135. AZ-GTI. HEQ5. iOptron SkyTracker.
TPO RC6. FRA400. Rokinon 135 and other lenses.
ZWO ASI2600MC. D5500 modified with UVIR clip-in filter.
ZWO ASI120MM Mini x 2. ZWO 30F4 guider. Orion 50mm guider.
ZWO EAF x 2.
4 years 4 months ago #45852

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I am still having the exact same issue, "....retry in 10s", which can mean anything upto 15 minutes later! This is very frustrating as this feature worked perfectly a couple of months ago for me.

I have update kstars tto 3.3.8 and am running Linux raspberrypi 4.19.75-v7l+ #1270 SMP Tue Sep 24 18:51:41 BST 2019 armv7l GNU/Linux

This never happens with the first capture, but always happens with the second, third and refresh.

KDE Frameworks 5.54.0
Qt 5.11.3 (built against 5.11.3)
The xcb windowing system

What else do I need to do to get some feedback on this issue? This is my first chance in over a week to actually see any sky, so spending hours setting up is not very rewarding.

Have I perhaps posted in the wrong forum?
Last edit: 4 years 4 months ago by Alan Townshend.
4 years 4 months ago #45940

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We're all here to help, given if we can. I see that you are able to capture and solve images and you are running to a windows machine.
How is your network connection? Perhaps lag is an issue.
Is autoguiding attempting to use the camera at the same time?
What is the behaviour when you tree take an exposure and or preview exposure in the capture module?
4 years 4 months ago #45949

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Often, when you start Ekos, both cameras get assigned as Primary scopes.
Try this and it might help:
When you start Ekos and INDI Control Panel pops-up,
make sure that your main camera is set to Primary (in Options) and
your Guide camera is set to Guide.

HTH
-- Max S
ZWO AM5. RST-135. AZ-GTI. HEQ5. iOptron SkyTracker.
TPO RC6. FRA400. Rokinon 135 and other lenses.
ZWO ASI2600MC. D5500 modified with UVIR clip-in filter.
ZWO ASI120MM Mini x 2. ZWO 30F4 guider. Orion 50mm guider.
ZWO EAF x 2.
4 years 4 months ago #45958

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Thanks for the replies.
@Ihoujin, I am running on a raspberry Pi4, and just using VNC from Windows, so it is running everything local to the Pi, so I can't see this being an issue. I did check to see if I could spot anything else that might be using the Camera, but could not spot anything, alos what would intermittently start using and then stop using the camera?

@maxthebuilder, I had fallen foul of not setting primary or guide to match the actual camera in the past when solving, but it is now something I always double check, or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

I had three clear hours last night and spent two trying to work out what is going on with polar alignment. I did check the code base and the error is only raised if the camera returns "is busy", but I cannot work out why it would be busy (and for random amount of times)? Can anyone suggest how to log camera usage? Unfortunately the forecast for the next 7 days is cloudy, and I'm off to a star party on Thursday (Kelling Heath), so dead cert it wont be clear! As mentioned before a couple of months ago it worked fine, but maybe I have set something without realising.
4 years 4 months ago #45971

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I think I have solved it, but cannot at this point say 100% what the issue was, as I broke the cardinal rule and changed more than one thing!

I have been attempting for the last two hours to start the polar alignment wizard to coincide with a patch of clearish sky, I must have attempted about thirty times just to get as far as the second capture, which is now working instantly, yay.

I eventually managed three consecutive full polar alignment wizards, getting closer and closer to zero each time, third one being 12 arcseconds off, which I think is acceptable! ;)

I think the main problem, which I am still not sure if it should be a problem or not, is that I had my guide camera in my device profile set to Altair, and a second Altair driver in my AUX devices. The reason being I have two altair cameras, one which is used as a standard guider and the second used as a polemaster equivalent. The reason I did this is because I had come across a post where someone asked how to do almost exactly what I was doing, but the subtle difference being their cameras required different drivers.

In the past I have removed one of the cameras, but didn't think to remove the driver. Then tonight I removed the AUX Altair driver, and restarted Kstars and was surprised to see both cameras were still picked up.

I will try to prove this when I get another clear night (totally clouded over now), by adding the Altair back into the AUX devices.
4 years 4 months ago #45983

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I sincerely hope that's all it was. It also explains why it was a unique situation others couldn't comment on. Best of luck!
4 years 4 months ago #45997

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