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Kstars crashes when taking flats

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One possible workaround for you:

1) Set your cam to "M" mode, disable FORCE BULB, apply your flat box.
2) In the CCD tab set Exposure: to "0.001", Type: to "Light" and take a preview shot. If it looks like a decent flat, good!
3) Increase/decrease Exposure time as needed and take another preview but MAKE SURE the Exposure time requested is available in your camera!
4) Once you have found a reasonable Exposure time and the preview looks like a decent flat, add a sequence of as many lights (no flats!) as needed to the queue and click start.

Use these "lights" as flats.
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Last edit: 4 years 5 months ago by Alfred.
4 years 5 months ago #44136

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Hey there. Thanks for the explanation.
The fastest shutterspeed from my 5diii is 1/8000sec. So thats far faster then the speeds i entered.
Anyway, with your informazion its easy to do a workaround. I just take the flats direct on the cam. I know where the histogram has to stay so thats not a problem.
Apart from this i ordered a „flatbox controller“ that will take my flats in the future and gets rid of the artefacts you get from a DSLR shutter and too fast exposuretimes when taking flats.

Cheers Niki


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Skywatcher EQ6-R | Lacerta 10" Carbon-Newton | Lacerta MFoc Motorfocus | Moravian G2 8300 Color | Canon EOS 5DMarkIIIa | Lodestar X2 guiding cam | KSTARS 3.4.3. on my outdoor-Laptop with KDE-Neon/Plasma | KSTARS 3.4.3. on Remote-IMac with Catalina | KSTARS 3.4.3 on Remote-Macbook Air with Catalina
4 years 5 months ago #44139

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Thank you for the detailed analysis.. this makes perfect sense.

Do you think that Ekos should always force BULB off for any exposures less than 1 second? would this resolve these many issues?
4 years 5 months ago #44144

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Be careful, I can not recommend doing the flats on the cam directly. What you will get is CR2 files whose geometry do not match those of your lights. Your stacking software will complain about it. What I had described is a better solution since you'll receive FITS files with the exact same geometry as your lights.
4 years 5 months ago #44157

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Why would the geometry be different between shooting directly on the camera and shooting with Ekos? Does Ekos resize the geometry because if yes then that would be bad. However, in my experience it doesn’t do that.

Also, using a DSLR and saving the images as FITS is not to be recommended because it involves a conversion from CR2 (i.e. RAW data) to FITS which might (and very likely will) lead to data loss. Please try to always save the data in CR2 format to get the most out of the camera.


Wouter
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4 years 5 months ago #44159

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IMO this would not solve the problem. A user could still enter a shutter speed unavailable in its camera or Ekos could still request the same when taking flats. Even with FORCE BULB = OFF Ekos would then resort to taking "B" exposures which must be prevented when the cam is in "M" mode.

My proposal is this: Use the "available shutter speeds list" that Ekos obtains from the camera anyway.

[2019-10-01T23:48:55.578 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 0: 30 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.578 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 1: 20 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.578 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 2: 15 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.578 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 3: 10 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.578 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 4: 8 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.578 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 5: 6 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 6: 4 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 7: 3 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 8: 2 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 9: 1.5 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 10: 1 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 11: 0.7 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 12: 0.5 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 13: 0.3 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 14: 1/4 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 15: 1/6 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 16: 1/8 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 17: 1/10 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 18: 1/15 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 19: 1/20 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 20: 1/30 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 21: 1/45 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 22: 1/60 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 23: 1/90 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 24: 1/125 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 25: 1/180 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 26: 1/250 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 27: 1/350 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 28: 1/500 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 29: 1/750 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] * 30: 1/1000 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 31: 1/1500 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 32: 1/2000 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 33: 1/3000 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 34: 1/4000 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.579 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 35: 1/6000 "
[2019-10-01T23:48:55.580 CEST DEBG ][ org.kde.kstars.indi] - Canon DSLR EOS 5D Mark II : "[DEBUG] 36: 1/8000 "

Before taking any picture Ekos should check whether the camera is set to "M" mode. If so, Ekos should avoid all shutter speeds hat are not in the list (also reject all other shutter speeds entered by the user manually). Ekos should offer all valid shutter speeds either by way of a pulldown menu in the CCD TAB's "Exposure:" field and/or by clicking the UP and DOWN arrows next to it. This of course requires Ekos to allow deviation from the desired ADU to some extent when taking flats.
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4 years 5 months ago #44161

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All cameras with a separate "B" mode would benefit massively from this modification. But other cameras would benefit to some extent, too since Ekos would no longer obtain inaccurately timed "B" exposures for fast shutter speeds when falling back to "B" mode. IMO 1/2000s cannot be timed by countdown. Even in a camera without separate "B" mode, requesting a 1/1400s (just an example) exposure would - as it is now - result in an inaccurately exposed frame.

The fallback to "B" mode is what should be prevented. With "B/M cameras" like the 5D it results in malfunction. With all other cameras it results in inaccurately timed exposures (at high shutter speeds).
Last edit: 4 years 5 months ago by Alfred.
4 years 5 months ago #44164

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In my experience, it does!
4 years 5 months ago #44165

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Ahh ok I was aware of that thread but only fleetingly read it.

So, why not use CR2 files? As I pointed out, that prevents one image conversion (from CR2 to FITS) which will prevent any possible (i.e. very likely) data loss.


Wouter
4 years 5 months ago #44166

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Thats not a problem since i use the raw files from the CF Card anyway, when i am working with the DSLR.


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Skywatcher EQ6-R | Lacerta 10" Carbon-Newton | Lacerta MFoc Motorfocus | Moravian G2 8300 Color | Canon EOS 5DMarkIIIa | Lodestar X2 guiding cam | KSTARS 3.4.3. on my outdoor-Laptop with KDE-Neon/Plasma | KSTARS 3.4.3. on Remote-IMac with Catalina | KSTARS 3.4.3 on Remote-Macbook Air with Catalina
4 years 5 months ago #44167

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Working with CR2 lights, flats and darks prevents conversion problems, no doubt about that!
4 years 5 months ago #44168

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Well, I think I just stuck to the standard without further thought. :-/ With CR2 files, is all the information that is normally stored in the FITS header, stored in a CR2 header, too? Maybe we should discuss this privately since it is unrelated to the OP's issues.
4 years 5 months ago #44169

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