I haven't had a chance to experiment on a Mac, but I did some experiments with a Windows system. It appears that the iPolar is supported on Windows with the plain "usbvideo" driver. Also, the iOptron app lets you only choose an exposure between 0.1ms and 500ms.
Unfortunately, outside is nothing but clouds. I would love to do a side-by-side comparison between the Windows app and Ekos.

Werner



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Hello Wouter

Yes, I can take images using the iPolar camera with my RPI4 Stellarmate/Ekos . I took the attached image a couple of days ago with 0.5 seconds. As you can see, this image is not sufficient for plate solving, hence polar alignment is not possible. That's why I am trying to increase the exposure time. I did also take some images today (daytime, inside) using the same equipment. What puzzled me with the images I took is that the 0.5 seconds image looks just like the 0.001 seconds image. I don't understand why that is. I also uploaded the output of a verbose "lsusb" just FYI. Please let me know if and how I can help to improve the iPolar support in Ekos.

Werner

File Attachment:

File Name: lsusb-vvv_2020-02-16-2.txt
File Size: 12 KB


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I am just starting to use the iOptron iPolar with my SkyGuider. I noticed that I can not set the exposure time for the iPolar above 0.5 seconds. Is this a limit I inadvertently set? Or is this a limit of the iPolar?

Regards,
Werner

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I use the SkyGuider Pro with Ekos. In my setup I have a DSLR (Sony A7R2) with a 400mm lens attached to the SkyGuider. In the hotshoe of the camera I have a guide scope (ZWO 30F4) with a guide camera (ZWO ASI120MM-S). I use Ekos for imaging and for guiding. Guiding is obviosly RA only and done via the camera, i.e., the SkyGuider guide-input is connected to the guide-output of the guide camera, and the guide camera USB-connector is connected to a Stellarmate which runs Kstars/Ekos. In my Ekos configuration I configured the Telescope Simulator as mount, the A7R2 is my imaging camera, the ASI120 is my guide camera, the 400mm lens is my primary scope, and the 30F4 is my guide scope.

Yesterday I also updated my SkyGuider with iOptron's iPolar scope for better polar alignment. Unfortunately, I don't have a clear sky today to test that out.....

Regards,
Werner

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Werner Kuballa replied to the topic 'Newbie Questions' in the forum. 4 years ago

Thank you for your advice. I will check it out. Unfortunately, with all the storms coming in, I don't think this will happen any time soon :-(

cheers,
Werner

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Werner Kuballa created a new topic ' Newbie Questions' in the forum. 4 years ago

I am using EKOS now for a few months, primarily to capture images using my Sony A7R2 with a 100-400mm zoom lens mounted on an iOptron SkyGuider Pro. This works fine, but I want to do more with EKOS., like "capture and solve" or polar alignment. I would love to practice this during day time, or when weather is bad using the simulator components of EKOS. I think these simulator components are a great idea. Trying to learn how to use EKOS when it's pitch black and when I can't move my fingers because it's so cold is very difficult.

However, using these simulator components is not that easy. I am running in a few issues and I would appreciate advice.

1) I thought I checked all tutorials about kstars and ekos, but none of them is focused on using the simulator components. Or did I miss@) that? Are there any instructions how to get started using the simulator components?

2) I am having a hard time getting plate resolving to work. Since I am using a zoom lens, I don't know the FOV. I read somewhere that is should be possible to set the FOV to "0x0" and to let EKOS find the FOV itself. But no matter what I type in the FOV field, it is always reset to some non-zero value. What am I missing? How can I ask EKOS to calculate the FOV given an image?

3) Reading various comments, it looks like one can inject an existing image into the image capturing for the "capture and resolve" operation. Is this correct? And how can this be done?


Any information, or pointers to tutorials is welcome. Are there any books about KSTARS/EKOS?

Regards,
Werner

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