I was thinking of buying a Moonlight focuser (High res stepper motor with mini V2 controller) for my refractor. I've been using Ekos to control everything on a Raspberry Pi.

Checking in to make sure the moonlight should work well with Ekos--e.g. I was unsure when I read this:

It is recommended that the focuser is completely retracted when powered on as the focuser can only be operated in FOCUS OUT mode at this stage.

on www.indilib.org/devices/focusers/moonlite-focuser.html

Obviously, the focuser needs to be able to move both in and out to attain focus--is this a limitation? Any other comments?
Perhaps I misunderstand what Focus In/Out means?

Thanks,
Hy

It operates in focus in/out. but if it is physically closest the OTA, then you cannot focus IN, can you? It's already at the limit and that what the sentence in the documentation above. So it works perfectly fine.

I have more than one. They work great, are very reliable, and i have had no issues on my mac or pi

Thanks. Can't wait 'till mine arrives.

I have a follow-up. My main use case is that I shoot a monochrome (ZWO ASI 1600) and need to re-focus whenever changing filters, certainly from Ha to OIII, or Red to Blue. However, I don't notice anything in the capture tab that says "run the focuser when changing filters".

Is there some such functionality to force a focus eval on filter swap that I haven't noticed?
Is it that "autofocus if HFR > XXX" button--does it evaluate the focus after every shot and automatically decide when to re-focus? Is that the way to go?
Can you insist that Ekos runs the focuser at a certain time?
I imagine focusing is a bit time consuming, and you wouldn't want to refocus frequently, so, practically speaking, how do you use your focuser with ekos and the focus tab?
How well do the filter offset settings work--i.e. can those numbers be learned easily enough, and do they stay constant?

My Astromik filters are supposedly parfocal, but when I noticed that they needed focus adjustments, I was told, yes the filters are parfocal, but different light colors will focus at different distances through my OTA. Bottom line, seems to me, that, practically speaking it doesn't matter if they filters are technically parfocal or not--when used with the rest of my optics I'll need to refocus.

Thanks.

Yes this functionality was added about a year ago. In the capture module there is button with an icon that looks like a funnel, that is the one you want. In Ekos, the refocusing for different filters is global, not just during a sequence. So you can use any function from plate solving, to previews, to sequences and the focus will change for the different filters.