mintakax

On 15/01/2023 at 01:48, A320Flyer said:

Steve,

I use focus offsets in NINA (used the Dark Customs plugin to set them up). But in the NINA options I don’t actually specify which filter is the autofocus filter! 
When doing NB, in my Sequence, I have:

Change filter to Ha (choose the filter for AF)

Autofocus

4x300 Ha

4x300 Sii

4x300 Oiii

Dither

Now loop the above until Dawn

With this loop, you get an AF every hour, and a dither in every 4th frame. The AF is done on the filter that I’m going to use for Lum, with the other filters using focus offsets. If your system is reasonably parfocal, you might not need offsets. 
 

If doing LRGB, I substitute the Lum filter for AF and adjust the number of exposures. 
 

My thinking on this is that I want best focus on the filter I’m going to use for the Lum in processing, but not so critical on the others (as I usually give them  a slight blur anyway).
 

HTH

Bill

 

I'm just starting with NINA and can't locate the Dark Customs plugins in the available plugins list. Are they no longer available?

OK, got it working. 

1 minute ago, Steve in Boulder said:

As stated in the documentation, Jocular should be run on Python 3.6 to 3.9.   I would start there.  

Thanks Steve, OK, well that explains it. 

I have spent over two hours  attempting to install jocular on a new windows 11 computer. I have it installed on a previous windows 11 computer and dont remember it being so difficult.

I have installed most recent python311

whether I do pip install jocular OR

pip3 install jocular or

pip3.11 install jocular 

I get the error "Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 or greater is required. Get it with "Microsoft C++ Build Tools":https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/visual-cpp-build-tools/

I downloaded and installed everything from that site yet I still get the error when I attempt to install jocular

I even tried installing it from the Developer Command Prompt for VS 2022

Can anyone help me with this?

Thank you Martin and Steve! 

--Dan

Is there any documentation that describes how to use the ROI function in Jocular? I can't find any mention of it in the documentation that I'm used to referencing.

On 13/11/2022 at 00:43, Martin Meredith said:

Thanks for this info. I'll see if I can add an option to specify a certain flip on load if this header is present.

Martin

Thanks Martin!

-Dan

Bumping this up just in case

Martin, I have confirmed with Software Bisque that this BTP FITS Header entry specifies the East or West placement of the OTA during the image capture, with a value of  0 indicating OTA East (Pointing West) and 1 indicating OTA West (pointing East). I'm not sure if this is sufficient to act as a reference to  the sub orientation.  As far as my subs are concerned, if it is a "1", then it is always the orientation of pre-meridian flip, if it is "0" the subs orientation is rotated 180 degrees.

What do you think?

dan

On 30/10/2022 at 10:09, Martin Meredith said:

Thinking more about this, I think the only way it is going to work is for the orientation to be embedded in the FITs header. The reason is that when you reload the subs at any point in the future, you would have to respecify the flipping point every time, which would be supremely tedious. Maybe the software you use for capture already does this? If you send me a FITS file (not a Jocular-created FITs) I will check the headers.

The collection software I use writes the image Center Altitude and Center Azimuth into the FITS header. But this will not help with determining the orientation since my mount will easily image an hour after a transit before a meridian flip is necessary. Whats needed is an entry that lists what side of the mount the scope is on. I found one entry in the FITS header called BTP with a description of "Beyond the pole". Dr. Google does not help me find out what this is exactly, but from the images that I have looked at, it seems to switch from 1 to 0 after a meridian flip. I'm going to investigate this more.

Thanks Martin--That makes sense.  I will check to see if this info is in the FITS header. Off hand, I dont think it is.
Dan

9 hours ago, Martin Meredith said:

No, that won't work I'm afraid. Flipping is only done as a final step prior to display rather than when the subs are coming in. I could add a 'flip on input' I suppose but I'd need to think thru any ramifications elsewhere.

Thanks Martin-- Yes, I confirmed that flipping does not allow stacking to continue after a meridian flip. I vote YES for a "flip on input" or some switch to tell jocular that from now on subs will be flipped. That said I realize that my use of jocular has strayed towards the boundaries of EAA. I use it to stack and display mono channels that I am collecting for AP. Being able to continue the stack after a meridian flip would just be to make a "deeper" stack.  Being able to stack and color combine mono channels has really added a level of involvement to collecting a lot of data for one target that just wasnt there before. Its really added another dimension to the excitement!

4 minutes ago, Steve in Boulder said:

I feel like this has a shot.  The combination of a top-bottom flip and a left-right flip is a 180 degree rotation, which is I think what happens with a meridian flip.  So toggle both flip switches.  

I'll try it, hopefully tonight, otherwise I have a saved set of subs I can try it with off line.

Are there any tips or tricks that would allow jocular to continue a stack after a GEM meridian flip ? I've been talking with Steve about it, but thought I'd throw the question here. My experience so far has been that subs fail to stack after a meridian flip and I have just been restarting jocular to begin a fresh stack.

Thanks

Dan

I've been using The SkyX with an ASI6200MM+filter wheel to take LRGBSHO images and display the stacks in real time using Jocular. For me, jocular had a pretty steep learning curve, but I'm realizing that it is the best software currently available for real time stacking of LRGBSHO images. I just wanted to give a shout out and thank Martin (and user Steve) for their efforts!

Dan