I setting up a second astrophotography equipment, to make it practical I bought a second camera for auto guiding. It's a used ZWO ASI120mm with the old USB2. It will be used with a Raspberry which use Linux. Bad chosie because it didn't work with Linux and all say it's very complicated to get it to work correctly.

I gave it a try and collected all information from INDI forum and others and got it to work.

Here is my documentation if someone else has the same problem:

www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/projects/pr...si120mm-upgrade.html

Note, I havn't tested it under a clear sky yet.

Lars

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Here is latest update of my motor focuser project. Now I'm building the motor focuser controller based on MyFocuserPro2 open source project.

www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/projects/pr...or-focus-driver.html

Maybe I can do a test the week coming.

Lars

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My modified EQMOD driver still works fine. I have updated my document of how I edited the driver:

www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/projects/pr...ect-indi-driver.html

Hope it can be of some help.

Lars

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Is it possible to sync the clock in a Canon DSLR camera ? It's a Canon 6D. My setup is Astroberry installed on a Raspberry Pi4.

Accoridng to this meny there is something about sync of DSLR camera clock:

Now we have come to the dark period in Sweden and I can start test the changes I have done.

With help of the Crony time handler I at last got thing to work. I got a lot of help for this, from here and friends. Now I can use the equipment outside the internet range and let the GPS sync the system clock. Earlier it only synched the KStars cloc and it caused some problem when polar align the mount. I have updated my instructions to this new setting, not much is changed, most important was the option "-n" in GPSD. It must be set to have Chrony to work as suppused. This is the normal setting but I had changed it to "" according instructions, but that was for Astroberry before version 2.0.1, from version 2.0.1 Astroberry use Chrony as standard. At least I think this is how it works.

Here is my instructions:
www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/projects/project-heq5/07-heq5.html

Next problem to solve, how to sync the clock in a DSLR Canon camera. It looks that it's possibly in the Ekos settings. But that I start a new thread for.

Lars

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Hi Nigel,
Sorry to ask so much, but do you type that command once and after that it always use chrono ? I haven't got it to work yet.

And one more question, does it only set the KStars time and date or does it also correct the Raspberry clock time and date ?

I have now got the KSTars clock and time correct, but it's the offset from the Raspberry clock. Raspberrys clock still wrong and then also the time stamp of the photo files. I don't understand why KStars take the Raspberry clock and not it's own time which is correct.

/Lars

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Thanks for all information and tricks. I have given up about the Canon 6D, it's too slow. Whatever setting I use, always 9 seconds transfer time.

Looking for a Nikon D800, more pixel and the Sony sensor. But even that camera I expect to have a slow transfer time.

/Lars

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Hi Nigel,
I configure it through INDI, but I did some commands in the comando window, set it to NEMA mode and pointed it to correct port, is that NTP or INDI ?

I have tested it more now. I can see that the time is corrected but normally not the date. But this evening it even corrected the date. When started the date was 6th but when GPS update it was set to 9th which is correct. I have no explanation why it sometimes only correct the time and sometimes both time and date. For me it takes about 5 minutes until it lock on satellites and get a stable location and time. It doesn't matter for me because it takes an hour to cool down the optics.

/Lars

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Now I have used my Raspberry a lot, most of the time it work perfectly.

But some problem left to solve if there is a solution for it:
When I'm out on the field without internet connection I get a problem. If the Raspberry hasn't been connected to internet during the day earlier I get the wrong date. The GPSD with a connected GPS dongle set the correct time and location but not the date. In the GPSD INDI window I see that it receives the correct date but it still doesn't correct the date. I have to correct the date with a sudo command. Maybe that's is the way it must be done because when reading in the setup I can enable the GPSD to force the other devices to use GPSD time and location. But there is nothing about the date.

Or is there a way to even let it correct the Raspberrys date ?

I can solve this if I during the day connect the Raspberry to internet before I go out to my dark places without internet. It looks if the Raspberry remember the last day it was up and running. Just have to remember to do this, or I can do a sudo command to set the date later.

My setup is documented here:
www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/projects/project-heq5/07-heq5.html

/Lars

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I tested different setup of the INDI DSLR Canon driver. But whatever I change I couldn't get it faster to transfer the file from the camera.

Here are the testing I did:

www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/tutorials/t...d-data-transfer.html

If the mount could start the dithering before downloading it wouldn't be that waste of time. As it's now the dither doesn't start until the transfer of the last image is finished.

/Lars

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Hi,
I hope someone deep into the Ekos system can help me. I have a Canon 6D that is controlled by Ekos, the Astroberry 2.0.4. and Pi4 4GB Raspberry.

1.
When an exposure is finished Ekos order the camera to transfer the file in raw format, about 24MB. It takes about 4 seconds, and then another 10 seconds until it has stored the raw file on the USB memory I have attached.

A little bit strange, if I set it up to store the image file in Fits format it download the file from the camera in only 1 second, how could it be like that, it's the same raw (*.C2) file ?

2.
Why does the Ekos not send command for a new exposure alreday when the file is transfered ? It could be done after only 4 seconds, not 14 seconds as it's now.

Is Ekos a multi tasking system ? Is there any way to setup it to speed up the waste time between the exposures ? Especially when doing auto focusing, it need at lleast 15 images until it find the optimal focus. The plate solving also get slow because of this. It doesn't matter if I setup the camera in single shot or multi burst mode.

I have documented what I have done here:
www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/tutorials/t...d-data-transfer.html

/Lars

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Hi Andrew,
My calculation on the homepage is more general to take care of the most devices. For me, I use the EQMOD INDI the last years. I take the comet data from CdC and get it in degree, minute and seconds per hour. Transform that to arcsec/sec in decimal form, and if needed a Cos(Dec) adjustment.

Lars

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Hi Andrew,
You must anyway transform the dRA and dDEC to correct format. From hours to sec. I have setup a calculator on my homepage were this can be done. Also the Cos(DeC) is included if needed.

Many yaers ago when I used PHD2 there was a problem when CdC transferd the data to PHD2, the Cos(DeC) was missing, but that is corrected since many years ago. You don't that is do that, it only dosply the result. But many years since I used PHD2, can be different now.

ps.
I have made a fix in the EQMOD INDI driver that let me setup dRA and dDEC, there was an error, the lower limit blocked that slow speeds that was necessary for comets. I haven't had any clear sky yet so I haven't tested it yet.

/Lars

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It's going forward, I got a clear sky yesterday and could do some outdoors tests. It still looks that the EQ6 mount working as it should. I could also do some test about the RA drift problem. I found that to get correct speed of my mount's RA rotation, Sidereal time I have to set it to: 11.25 arcsec/sec. From that I could calculate what correction my mount with Custom Gear need.

It's documented here with screendumps and info:

www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/projects/pr...ect-indi-driver.html

Now I can update the sorurce code according to this and see what's happen.

/Lars

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