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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Make countdown work well

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This is a minor and really silly request. Whenever an exposure is being taken, no matter if it is in the CCD, Guide or Align tab, then a count down to 0 is shown. The rounding off of the seconds isn't done well and sometimes a second is skipped. When 0 is reached it takes another second (or a large part of it) for the exposure to actually stop.

Like I said, this request is kind of silly since 1 second doesn't matter when exposures of several minutes or larger are taken. Still, if you have some time to look into this then it would make my nerdy and control-freakishly life a little easier if you could fix this.

Many thanks in advance!!!
6 years 1 month ago #22790

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Somebody can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the Exposure time shown in each of those locations is the actual exposure time remaining reported by the driver itself. It is not a Timer in Ekos. Thus if there is a network delay or blockage that prevents the time from getting updated between the INDI Server and the INDI client, then the time might appear to skip a little. This is not a cause for concern really unless it is not updating at all or unless for some reason your image does not download.

When you say that it reaches 0 then it takes a second to actually stop, are you including the time it takes to download or not? Also did you include the time it takes the exposure to start as well? I have checked with my Canon camera and it does say it took a 60 s exposure when Ekos tells it to take a 60 s exposure. I think its pretty close as far as I can tell. It does take time for the network to transmit and process signals.

I believe that I would greatly prefer the current design, than if it were a Timer in Ekos and looked like it kept perfect time. The reason is because if for some reason the camera does not start to expose right away when it is told to do so, or if there was a network lag, the timers could get out of sync. This way it is a better record of how long the driver/camera thinks is left in the exposure instead of what Ekos thinks it should be. Another benefit to the current setup if you are using a remote indiserver is that the camera will continue to expose if for some reason you close KStars by accident. If you can get it started back up in time, you will still get the exposure returned. If this happens in the current design, the time remaining will be correctly updated as soon as you connect. If KStars were changed so it had its own timer to show the time remaining instead, there is no way it could know how much time is remaining.
6 years 1 month ago #22791

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I don’t use Ekos over a network but run it on my Linux laptop to which I directly have connected the mount, Canon camera and guide cam. When I add a sequence and press start, I immediately hear the shutter of the camera open. When the countdown reaches 0 it takes (the better part of) a second for the sequence to end and, at the same time, for the shutter to close. Then it takes 3 to 4 seconds for the image to download, which I don’t count here.

I wasn’t aware that the time displayed is what the driver reports. In that case it may be something in libgphoto2, which I use for my Canon camera. Or perhaps something in the camera itself. Previously, however, I was using the Canon EOS Utility software, that did not have this issue and the countdown always was spot on.

I do get your point about using a combination of an INDI server and client and potential network delays. I actually plan to look into this myself (an RPi3 will arrive tomorrow) so perhaps it indeed is best to leave things as they are.

Thanks for the detailed explanation and please forget about this request. Told you it was silly ;-)
Last edit: 6 years 1 month ago by Wouter van Reeven.
6 years 1 month ago #22794

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Gotcha, well Jasem could answer the part about it not stopping exactly when it reaches 0, I don't know the answer to that. Try doing it just with GPhoto and see if you have the same timing.
6 years 1 month ago #22795

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On my DSLR I felt like the timer was a truncated integer. That is 0.99 seconds reports as 0. I always added 1 to what it said as I counted down along with it.
6 years 1 month ago #22849

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Yes I got that impression as well. But if the camera truncates the number then there is not much to be done.
6 years 1 month ago #22850

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