Getting back into imaging after a long break

[sloz1664]

2 hours ago, Gina said:

Yes indeed!  I'll have to give it more thought now that I'm imaging again.  Any recommendation for a rain detector?  Anyone?  Of course, I need to get the motor drive working first but a rain detector could sound an alarm.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinomysqmskyqualitymeter/

Steve

[Skipper Billy]

These work REALLY well - mine sets off a flashing blue light in the indoors office.

https://www.reichelt.com/gb/en/rain-sensor-12-v-dc-m-152-p118916.html?PROVID=2788&wt_guka=54951089435_263550074609&PROVID=2788&gclid=CjwKCAjwsIbpBRBNEiwAZF8-zyeetSC6-sBQe7HbOXJ8ZlIHj0cs_mxpFmbIff0kmP8jJgbx7C-EixoCurMQAvD_BwE&&r=1

[sloz1664]

1 hour ago, Skipper Billy said:

These work REALLY well - mine sets off a flashing blue light in the indoors office.

https://www.reichelt.com/gb/en/rain-sensor-12-v-dc-m-152-p118916.html?PROVID=2788&wt_guka=54951089435_263550074609&PROVID=2788&gclid=CjwKCAjwsIbpBRBNEiwAZF8-zyeetSC6-sBQe7HbOXJ8ZlIHj0cs_mxpFmbIff0kmP8jJgbx7C-EixoCurMQAvD_BwE&&r=1

That's a great find David. just ordered one 👍

Steve

[Gina]

Aha!!  I have a feeling of déjà vu - I think I bought one of those a few years ago.  Wonder if I can find it!  Cheap enough to buy again if I can't

[Gina]

Set up for taking Flats - 100 per filter.  Using ADU for exposure.  Camera is 12bit so range is 0-4095 so set ADU to 2047 with tolerance of 100.  Strangely, it's stopped after capturing 50 subs.  This software is being weird under my control!!

Edited July 7, 2019 by Gina

[Gina]

Stretched in PI.

[Gina]

OIII has gone past 50.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Gina

[Xplode]

Flats seems very dark.
This might not apply for KStars...some software automatically converts ADU to 16bit, so you might want to try 30k

[Gina]

OK - I'll try 30K

[Gina]

That works.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Gina

[Gina]

KStars seems to be set to "Always on Top",  stopping me from doing other things.  Every exposure brings KStars on top.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Gina

[Gina]

Saving to disk has stopped again - this time at 18 subs.  Downloading but not saving.  Plenty of disk space.

[Gina]

Something very strange going on!!!  Started taking Ha Flats again and they are going into the right folder but the filename says "OIII"
viz. "/home/gina/AstroImages/Flat/H_Alpha/28mm 2x_Flat_OIII_0.011_secs_2019-07-07T15-47-45_050.fits"

The exposure value is wrong too.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Gina

[Gina]

The TimeStamp is wrong too. 

Capture info :- "2019-07-07T17:13:24 Capturing 0.468-second H_Alpha image..."
File info :- /home/gina/AstroImages/Flat/H_Alpha/28mm 2x_Flat_OIII_0.011_secs_2019-07-07T15-47-45_050.fits

It seems to be caching files and running a FIFO queue.

Edited July 7, 2019 by Gina

[Gina]

I dunno - I just don't seem to be able to get to grips with this software!!  I know I'm not as young as I was but I can't really believe I'm going senile!  Should I drop all this technical stuff and go back to knitting?? 

[Gina]

One thing I can try that sometimes works when computers and software is playing up.  Shut everything down, restart and try again...

[Gina]

I'll save to a brand new folder on my system drive.  Just to avoid any confusion (hopefully!!!).

[sloz1664]

14 minutes ago, Gina said:

I dunno - I just don't seem to be able to get to grips with this software!!  I know I'm not as young as I was but I can't really believe I'm going senile!  Should I drop all this technical stuff and go back to knitting?? 

I'd stay with the techie stuff Gina. I get confused at "knit one, pearl one" 

Steve

[Gina]

Might haave finger trouble with knitting!

[Gina]

File info "/home/gina/0-Astro/Flat/H_Alpha/28mm_2x_Flat_H_Alpha_0.461_secs_2019-07-07T17-40-58_010.fits".  That is right.  But will see when there are other files around.

[wimvb]

Where do you save your images, Gina? I just fired up my sbc and connected with Kstars Windows version. When I save images locally on the sbc, it works fine. Mind you, I am using the simulators at the moment, as my "real" stuff is still in summer storage.

My configuration is:

• indiserver on a rock64, connected through ethernet
• kstars on my windows laptop, connected with wifi. Connect to the indiserver on the rock.

I do find your exposure time of only 0.011 seconds very short. Maybe that's what's causing the trouble. Do you have the Pro versions of the ASI? If not, then download time may interfere with exposure time. You can set a delay in the capture module of kstars to avoid traffic congestion.

[Gina]

I'm saving my images to the system SSD on my Linux Mint desktop.  The exposures are now around 0.5s.  I don't have the Pro ASI1600MM.  I can try putting a delay in.

Ha Flats went OK, OIII same but SII stopped saving halfway through.  Tried with just 20 subs each this time.  Adding a delay might stop the saving failure.

I still have KStars taking control of the computer when it has downloaded a sub, interrupting what I'm doing.  It didn't used to do this - I could leave KStars capturing, downloading and saving images in the background while I did other things.  Any ideas?

Edited July 7, 2019 by Gina

[Gina]

Put a 10s delay in the capture form and doing another run of 3x20 subs.

Think I've solved the KStars taking over problem.  Unticked "Focus on receiving an image" in the FITS settings.

[Gina]

Better - all 60 subs captured, downloaded and saved.

[Gina]

I'm not sure the Flats setup I'm using is working well for the widefield rig ie. 4 layers of white T shirt stretched over the dew shield.