Want to see my Kstars/Ekos/Stellarmate session?

I recorded a (cloudy) test session to test ST4 and dome slaving for Jarem to see. Because it was just a test I didn't expect to share it and there is no narration.
Next time I'll narrate and do a little tour.

Anyway if you want to see it (rather boring unless you're looking to get into the software) you can view it here.
Seeing my pointing is pretty self explanatory. (I had problems slaving - I had to keep clicking ENABLE
And while ST4 did work fairly well - pulse did not and the mount takes off during calibration steps.

I went back to ST4... but really was too cloudy for me to see stars visually... but luckily longer exposures still picked up some so I could test.
Here's the session.

TEST session video

Ron Kramer wrote: rather boring unless you're looking to get into the software

You really know how to sell your own videos

hahaha - better to let them down before they go than to let them down after an hour of watching it = )
I'll do one for public consumption on a clear night. And wasn't like it was a fun target - just happened to be a cluster near the meridian.
But it is cool to kinda see the software work.

Did you find it exciting

I’ll admit I didn’t watch it when I wrote that reply but I skimmed through it just now. I was excited to see your dome move though I expected the telescope and the dome to move together. Will that be possible in the future?

It does now. I disabled the dome slave at start up . And I think because of that it didn't follow the scope.
normally it does. I'm new to the software so I don't know all the quirks yet.

I'm not sure what I did wrong or right. But I assume enable maybe has to be on before I unpark the mount? (Jasem?) This was a video for him to see
so he may tweak that. (since he just rewrote the driver).

I'm also in the house 100 yards from the dome.

Here's an example of it tracking with the shutter.

test slews video

Is that a private video on facebook? I am not allowed to see it. Perhaps we need to be friends first. My facebook name is wvreeven. Otherwise search for Wouter van Reeven. There are two of us (the other one is a cousin once removed) but you should be able to figure out who is who

wvreeven wrote: Is that a private video on facebook? I am not allowed to see it. Perhaps we need to be friends first. My facebook name is wvreeven. Otherwise search for Wouter van Reeven. There are two of us (the other one is a cousin once removed) but you should be able to figure out who is who

I linked to my video on a private nexdome group - and likely you couldn't see it. I reuploaded it to my obsy page which is all public. So that same link should work for you now? (else let me know)
It's a pointing/slaving test after I installed kstars/ekos and entered in my slaving requirement settings.

knro wrote: Thanks for sharing Ron. Few observations:

1. Use the remote solver on StellarMate instead of Online. You just need to select "Astrometry" driver as one of the Auxiliary drivers. This would probably be faster than online.

okay done. I don't have to install any FOV files? Hoping it's faster!

2. Minimum pulse should probably remain at 100, any value under that would make too many smaller pulses that might actually make guiding worse than better.

I typically run the min very low on PHD (lower than recommended for most mounts) Low setting in PHD for me has to do with seeing. If I see oscillation I know it's chasing seeing and I increase it.
But I'll go back up to 100 and check it again now that ST4 works. (thanks!) will do.

3. Maximum pulse should be keep at one value, I see you keep changing it.

YES trying to learn what the "tuning" settings are. Since the manual doesn't really explain - I have learned the software by trial and error so far. (I asked elsewhere - what do the 2 gain types adjust?)

4. Binning 2x2 will help resolve the star better.

I agree - but I get SLITS (see other post about guiding). If think you'll see that in the video. I had 2x2 and when I looked I had SLITS. the brighter the star the longer the slit.
You can see I almost clicked one - or did and tried then went to 1x1 to get a "STAR" instead of a slit. ???

5. The guiding rate value is for the MOUNT guiding rate.. if you change it, nothing changes really. The only thing that happens is that it <strong>suggests</strong> the <em>recommended</em> proportional gain to use.

okay mine is 1.0 AP says - I see it calcs me at 66.6 I started there and tried to adjust the pulses and corrections by playing around but nothing really seemed to work so I'm just guessing until I see or learn how to get results