(hope this doesn't post twice - having problems with recaptch)
Hi there, thought I'd post this incase anyone else was thinking of purchasing a used Nikon D90 or wants to use an existing D90 with Ekos/INDI.

First off - INDI via the gphoto2lib does an excellent job of running this camera and in my opinion, it is a great camera considering the price of a used one ($125 CAD) at the local pawn shop.
Only problem I've come across in Ekos is that liveview (aka streaming) does not work if you do not trigger a photograph first. Once a single image (even 1sec exposure) is taken - preview or streaming works great.
Unfortunately - the Camera itself (or better said, it's firmware) has, what I consider, a major flaw for astrophotography.
<strong>The shutter cannot be triggered via software if the camera is set to bulb mode</strong>.  I have confirmed this exhaustively - even going to the point of borrowing a windows computer and downloading and running the Nikon Camera Control Pro 2 software. <strong>Even Nikon's own software cannot trigger the shutter of the D90 in bulb mode</strong> (and the camera firmware is up to date). Nikon's own software pops up a message telling you the camera is in bulb mode and you'll have to trigger the shutter manually via shutter button on the camera or using the Nikon optional remote shutter release.

So - if you want to use the Nikon D90 with Ekos/INDI, (or any other software), you will be limited to exposures of 30sec unless you trigger the shutter manually via the button on the camera - or via a remote shutter release.

It <strong>MAY</strong> be possible to use a programmable shutter release device to get longer exposures (I have NOT tried this) - but this kind of defeats the purpose of using Ekos/INDI for running your observation sessions. Amazon has some listed as compatible with the D90 that I may still look into, as I do like the camera and I'm not sure I'll send it back to the pawn shop.

Just thought I'd share this as I spent many hours trying to figure out why bulb mode wasn't working. I went so far as to sending PTP opcodes to the camera based on output from gphoto2 debug sessions and gphoto2 shell. Today I finally borrowed a windows computer and - well Nikon's own software output was the nail in the proverbial coffin for bulb mode on this camera...

Cheers - I'm off to try to find a new camera for DSO that won't break the bank.

Pete

Read More...