SGPro & ASI1600mono settings for Gain/Offset

[blinky]

Hi,

Bit confused! I've downloaded the trial of SGPro and have to say so far I like it!  Wish it had integrated guiding but can live with using PHD and it.... Anyway, Im confused about the settings for my ASI1600.  I think I can set the gain/offset on each image run, so when doing say HaRGB I could (in theory) use a higher gain/offset for the Ha then just use unity gain for the RGB?  But when looking in the options for the event the offset bit is greyed out, also the gain goes from 0-600 but when using the Ascom driver in Maxim the max gain is 300.

[symmetal]

At the moment the offset can only be set in the Ascom driver. The camera offset parameter is not defined in the Ascom standard and so can't be read or set externally to the Ascom driver. While the gain can be set externally, like via SGP this is of limited usefulness unless you set the offset in Ascom to a value which corresponds to the highest gain setting you'll use and leave it there. This means losing dynamic range at lower gain settings where such a high offset isn't necessary. The offset parameter was implemented in SGP but is left grayed out until it can be set outside Ascom by an update to the Ascom standard.

The gain setting is limited by Zwo to 300 in their Ascom configuration panel but have allowed it to be set higher by external programs through Ascom. Whether this is a benefit is debatable. 

Alan

[blinky]

Thanks for the reply, so for the moment just set it on the camera settings globally when connecting to the camera?

I also had another issue when using PhD to guide, after doing plate solving to get to target it started guiding again but it never started the sequence again as it was waiting on guiding settling which it never did. When looking at phd it was guiding perfectly though.

[symmetal]

Yes, just use the Ascom driver settings for gain and offset (the wrench icon next to the connect to camera icon) and have the gain settings on the SGP Control Panel/Camera tab set to 'Not set'. I believe this stops setting the gain per event from working but to be safe leave them on the default 'Not set' anyway. The SGP developers recommend doing this in their forum as you can easily get yourself in a right mess else. Having to keep track of all those extra 'darks' corresponding to the different gain/offset permutations could be a nightmare.

The settling time parameters are set on the Control Panel/Auto-guide tab. I generally use 0.2 pixels for 5 seconds to avoid it starting to image before it has recovered fully from a dither, but it depends on your guide camera image scale. In times of poor seeing or at low altitudes I may have to increase it to 0.3 or 0.4 pixels or it never settles or may take up to a minute to settle. 

Alan