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sloz1664

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Posts posted by sloz1664

    Voyager Questions

    in Discussions - Software

    Posted

    29 minutes ago, andrew s said:

    In the distant past (note reference to FORTAN) I was a control engineer at the dawn of computer control with real ferrite core computers! 🙄

    Regards Andrew 

    I wasn't a computer programmer, I was a Manufacturing Engineer and although I did dabble with Fortran in 1983, it wasn't my thing and went into Robotics instead :)

    Steve

    • Like 1

    Voyager Questions

    in Discussions - Software

    Posted

    8 hours ago, andrew s said:

    Once I realised Voyager is an event driven, quasi realtime, system the DragScripts became more obvious as it's not like, say Basic or Fortran, as events can interrupt the program. If a sequence is interrupted it starts again from the beginning. The simulators for weather events certainly help testing.

    Not a big issue if you take a small  number of images but the image names can be annoying as the "numbers" can repeat (time is the key differentiator). I can take 2000 images a night and the  numbers can mix them up! I use a bulk renaming program to strip them out.

    Regards Andrew 

     

    Hi Andrew, Thanks for the info, it will take a few clear nights to understand the logic in how Voyager works. I'm lucky in some respects, as part of my working life I used to write machine code for complex automated machines and Dragscript is of a similar vein. As you rightly pointed out, How it indexes the images is something I will have to sort out.

    Steve

    • Like 1

    Voyager Questions

    in Discussions - Software

    Posted

    I've had Voyager now for 5 months, and now I have my Dome fully automated, I have now completed my first imaging session without a hitch. Well impressed.  Don't get me wrong, writing full Dragscripts tailored for your own automated setup is no easy task and when you get it right. It works brilliantly.

    Steve

    • Like 1

    H-Alpha Auto Focus SGP

    in Imaging - Discussion

    Posted

    50 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

    I also had this issue across three different rigs, 2x2 binning, twelve second exposures with object directly overhead and gave up and rely on the fact that my filters are claimed to be parfocal.  So I focus with lum and switch back to Ha/OIII.  Or I could work out the offset, focus with lum and apply the offset.  I CBA to work out the offset since it is precious imaging time faffing around, we get so little as it is!

    28 seconds is a long time for an AF focus sub when temperatures are dropping.  Nine x 28s (actually, ten including the confirmation one at the end)  and we are looking at six minutes to do an AF run.  That's getting silly.

    Don't know about anyone else, I can never "trust" AF and when it runs there's always some trepidation that I have to get involved.  It can work 99 times out of a 100. Then for almost no reason at all, it just starts playing havoc with gull wings and auto-abandoning the sequence "something terrible has happened"

    As an aside, is there any way you can say that an AF score of 78% (say) is acceptable and to NOT run another AF session????  I do not see how to do that? Often I find the focus point to be perfectly acceptable and yet SGP wants to rerun.

     

    Hi Steve

    Can you bin at 4x4 as this will reduce the autofocusing operation by over 50% 

    Steve

    Hello From Deep South US

    in Welcome

    Posted

    Hi and a very warm welcome to the Lounge. I suggest you purchase to the book "Making every photon count" before parting with your hard earned cash. The book gives a wonderful insight into astrophotography, the equipment used and the pitfalls you may encounter.

    Steve

     

    • Like 1

    First night out with NINA ;-)

    in Discussions - Software

    Posted

    22 hours ago, muletopia said:

    Hello Skipper Billy,

    I also use Sitech with my Mesu 200 (mark1). Do you have a mount model? I f so how did you build it.

    I am halfway though building a mount model using Nebulosity4. This program frequently drops communication with Sitech  so I asked Stitech groups if it was possible to build a plate solved model using NINA.

    This is the reply I received from Don W

    " There is a cumbersome way to use Nina, by modifying the script to develop a PXP model to pause and manually take a Fits image in NINA and save it to the default.fit location, then let SiTech run Platesolve 2 or 3 for that PXP point, then move to the next point. "

    That sounds much too complicated , so unless there is a more straight forward method I will continue with Nebulosity and platesolve3, when it works it is quite quick but it is unpleasant to have to restart nebulosity listen mode after every couple of calstars are acquired.

     

    Another question about NINA, does it support QHY8L, my imaging camera (guiding uses a ZWO  asi 120mm)

    I hope these questions are not an imposition on your time.

    Chris

     

     

    Hi Chris,

    I'm interested in NINA also and couldn't get my QHY8Pro to connect. Unfortunately, the old drivers are not compatible with NINA and Ascom 6.5. I don't know if this is relevant to the QHY8L  though. If so, there is a workaround that may work using the latest NINA beta release and reverting back to Ascom 6.4. 

    Steve

    NINA with Pulsar Observatory?

    in Discussions - Software

    Posted

    42 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

    @sloz1664 Hi again, Steve - DOH!! I haven't thought this through properly........ yes I can get slaving sorted but, of course, as you have indicated I still can't open and close the aperture or couple and de-couple the dome!! The search for a replacement to CCD Commander continues which is such a great pity as NINA shows amazing promise for just about everything else except perhaps running external scripts at the beginning of a session rather than just at the end of a sequence.

    Hi Steve, Sorry to disappoint you. Although, there has been talk in the NINA community of adding observatory control and hopefully this includes full dome control.

    Steve

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