A new deep sky image capture software on the rise!

[jimjam11]

How is the performance? I love sgp but it's performance is terrible with cmos cameras where exposures are short (<30s). Sgp with the interframe performance of sharpcap would be the bees knees...

[RolandKol]

23 minutes ago, jimjam11 said:

How is the performance? I love sgp but it's performance is terrible with cmos cameras where exposures are short (<30s). Sgp with the interframe performance of sharpcap would be the bees knees...

You can change Download speeds in SGP, to make short sub session faster...

Unfortunately I have not yet tried NINA on a short ones

[jimjam11]

Yes, but even with a download time of 1-2s SGP then slows everything down. It is highly synchronous in its architecture and when I tested 1-2s of download became an interframe delay of 12s+ if image history (super useful) and filter interleaving was used. SGP also has a bug whereby it 'settles' between every frame which needs to be set to allow for dithering.

Edited March 23, 2019 by jimjam11

[Guest]

The best is, to dlwonload and try N.I.N.A

Here us an image taken with N.I.N.A with an CMOS CCD ZWO ASI 183MM PRO + Ha Filter, only 45 seconds, from a very high light polluted area..

Regards

Nartin

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2019 by Guest

[Shelster1973]

Several steps forward today with this here.

Have managed to get the softwarer up and running and was attempting a trial run inddors just to see if the sequences would work and get the following error pop up when I either try and run a sequence or carry out a manual exposure 

'Unexpected error occured Property write ASCOM.SXMain0.Camera Readoutmode is not implimented in this driver'

Any ideas?

I have noticed that in the camera control pane, i have two drop down boxes under the main camera part at the top headed 'Readout Mode for SNAP' and 'Readout Mode for Sequence' but both of these boxes are blank when you go to the pull down.

[jjosefsen]

1 hour ago, Shelster1973 said:

Several steps forward today with this here.

Have managed to get the softwarer up and running and was attempting a trial run inddors just to see if the sequences would work and get the following error pop up when I either try and run a sequence or carry out a manual exposure 

'Unexpected error occured Property write ASCOM.SXMain0.Camera Readoutmode is not implimented in this driver'

Any ideas?

I have noticed that in the camera control pane, i have two drop down boxes under the main camera part at the top headed 'Readout Mode for SNAP' and 'Readout Mode for Sequence' but both of these boxes are blank when you go to the pull down.

Hmm sounds like that camera maybe supports differing readout modes, and it might not be completely handled.

Even though ASCOM is supposed to be a standard platform, camera manufacturers are notorious for making noncompliant drivers..

As far as I know you are the first user with a Starlight Xpress camera.

Would you mind uploading the logfile with a description of the problem here?

https://bitbucket.org/Isbeorn/nina/issues?status=new&status=open

 

Logfile can be found at: %LocalAppData% \Local\NINA\Logs (just paste this into the "run" windows in windows..)

[Shelster1973]

13 minutes ago, jjosefsen said:

Hmm sounds like that camera maybe supports differing readout modes, and it might not be completely handled.

Even though ASCOM is supposed to be a standard platform, camera manufacturers are notorious for making noncompliant drivers..

As far as I know you are the first user with a Starlight Xpress camera.

Would you mind uploading the logfile with a description of the problem here?

https://bitbucket.org/Isbeorn/nina/issues?status=new&status=open

 

Logfile can be found at: %LocalAppData% \Local\NINA\Logs (just paste this into the "run" windows in windows..)

All done for you

[Shelster1973]

Looks like I may have solved it.

Went to the StarlightXpress webpage and had a look/see for another driver (as that seemed to be the issue)

Using driver from here have now managed to get NINA to carry out and exposure.

Will give it all a full trial run on my imaging run tonight

[Guest]

I have an SXV M25C and it works with NINA, with the ASCOM DRIVER version 6.2.1.18212 + latest driver for SXV

Edited March 26, 2019 by Guest

[Shelster1973]

Am up and running now and from what I have seen so far, this is an amazing piece of software.

It is what I wanted from SGP all those years ago when I bought it.  Have had some good results using it, but feel I may now only be using NINA from here onwards

will post some images up when I have them. Have gone for the good old Heart Neb tonight and am shooting it in Ha,G,B and lum. Going for 600s subs

[jjosefsen]

2 hours ago, Shelster1973 said:

Am up and running now and from what I have seen so far, this is an amazing piece of software.

It is what I wanted from SGP all those years ago when I bought it.  Have had some good results using it, but feel I may now only be using NINA from here onwards

will post some images up when I have them. Have gone for the good old Heart Neb tonight and am shooting it in Ha,G,B and lum. Going for 600s subs

Glad to hear it man..! Looking forward to seeing the results.

[Shelster1973]

Nothing spectacular in these two images, but her are very quick and dirty ones from tonight.

Have just carried out a stretch and quick curve on single frames here.

Ha Frame

Green Frame

Focus needs a fair bit of work, but have just ordered the Prima Lucie Sesto Senso, so will be adding that to my setup and also into NINA when it arrives

[Star101]

Some good words posted here.

I use SGPro at the moment. I will have a look at this software and may give it a go too...Especially if its free

 

[jjosefsen]

5 hours ago, Shelster1973 said:

Nothing spectacular in these two images, but her are very quick and dirty ones from tonight.

Have just carried out a stretch and quick curve on single frames here.

Ha Frame

Green Frame

Focus needs a fair bit of work, but have just ordered the Prima Lucie Sesto Senso, so will be adding that to my setup and also into NINA when it arrives

Looking good. I have the Sesto senso myself, so I know it works a treat with NINA. ?

[Shelster1973]

9 hours ago, jjosefsen said:

Looking good. I have the Sesto senso myself, so I know it works a treat with NINA. ?

Do you have the temp probe with the Sesto too?  I contemplated buying that, but find £41 a bit on the steep side (hey this is astronomy....) for what is effectively a thermistor and a 3.5mm jack.  Am doing some looking around to see if I can find out what particular thermistor they use and see how much they cost.  Can then knock up one that fits exactly to where I need it and does not require me to hide masses of extra cabling

[RolandKol]

10 minutes ago, Shelster1973 said:

Do you have the temp probe with the Sesto too?  I contemplated buying that, but find £41 a bit on the steep side (hey this is astronomy....) for what is effectively a thermistor and a 3.5mm jack.  Am doing some looking around to see if I can find out what particular thermistor they use and see how much they cost.  Can then knock up one that fits exactly to where I need it and does not require me to hide masses of extra cabling

 

it looks like ordinary DS18B20 for around £2

https://telescopes.net/store/primalucelab-temperature-sensor-for-sesto-senso-focus-motor.html

Edited March 27, 2019 by RolandKol

[jjosefsen]

12 minutes ago, Shelster1973 said:

Do you have the temp probe with the Sesto too?  I contemplated buying that, but find £41 a bit on the steep side (hey this is astronomy....) for what is effectively a thermistor and a 3.5mm jack.  Am doing some looking around to see if I can find out what particular thermistor they use and see how much they cost.  Can then knock up one that fits exactly to where I need it and does not require me to hide masses of extra cabling

No i didn't splurge on that, I too had a bit of a allergic reaction to paying that much for a damn temp. probe.

NINA will do autofocus based on a number of criteria.

The obvious one is - on filter change.

I usually also use - after # of exposures or # of minutes, depending on what my sequence looks like.

[emyliano2000]

I downloaded N.I.N.A too because my daughter in Nina and I have to like it ?

I had a little play with it, connected my equipment, cooled the camera, checked the filterwheel is working properly. I quite like it.

On the framing assistant, how do you make the image a bit darker to show the objects a bit better on the screen or what image source do you use for framing?

Emil

Edited March 27, 2019 by emyliano2000

[jjosefsen]

2 hours ago, emyliano2000 said:

I downloaded N.I.N.A too because my daughter in Nina and I have to like it ?

I had a little play with it, connected my equipment, cooled the camera, checked the filterwheel is working properly. I quite like it.

On the framing assistant, how do you make the image a bit darker to show the objects a bit better on the screen or what image source do you use for framing?

Emil

Hi Emil,

 

Glad you liked it.

Im not 100% sure what you mean, but I will take a guess.

There is an opacity control (+/-) top right, which will change the opacity of the framing box.

You can try the different image sources, the quality will vary quite a bit, from excellent to absolutely horrendous! Not much to do about that i'm afraid as it is the data provided by NASA, ESA, etc..

You can also switch to the offline version, and get a sort of Cartes du'Ciel like approach to framing.

[emyliano2000]

11 minutes ago, jjosefsen said:

Hi Emil,

 

Glad you liked it.

Im not 100% sure what you mean, but I will take a guess.

There is an opacity control (+/-) top right, which will change the opacity of the framing box.

You can try the different image sources, the quality will vary quite a bit, from excellent to absolutely horrendous! Not much to do about that i'm afraid as it is the data provided by NASA, ESA, etc..

You can also switch to the offline version, and get a sort of Cartes du'Ciel like approach to framing.

Thank you.

I was thinking about the background. I'm used to framing in stellariumand I can see if there are small fuzzies that I can frame with the main target. I toogled between the image sources and I worked it out in the end.

I'm outside now hoping for a ful test. 

Looking forward to use it. Looks very promising.

I've vbeen using APT so far but I was thinking of switching to SGP.  N.I.N.A came at exactly the right time. I installed the 1.9 Nightly version. I hope it works all right.

Emil

Edited March 27, 2019 by emyliano2000

[jjosefsen]

5 minutes ago, emyliano2000 said:

Thank you.

I was thinking about the background. I'm used to framing in stellariumand I can see if there are small fuzzies that I can frame with the main target. I toogled between the image sources and I worked it out in the end.

I'm outside now hoping for a ful test. 

Looking forward to use it. Looks very promising.

I've vbeen using APT so far but I was thinking of switching to SGP.  N.I.N.A came at exactly the right time. I installed the 1.9 Nightly version. I hope it works all right.

Emil

If you know what discord is, it might be an idea to jump on there, can ask "live questions" to the devs and other users.

[emyliano2000]

3 hours ago, jjosefsen said:

If you know what discord is, it might be an idea to jump on there, can ask "live questions" to the devs and other users.

I don't know. Do you have a link? Is there a forum? Also, I wanted to ask if you can add park or warm camera commands at the end of the session.

[emyliano2000]

Found it and joined. Thanks 

[Shelster1973]

Decided to switch target tonight and went for the venerable M101.  Managed to get 7 x 600s for G,B,L and Ha.  This is a rough and dirty Lum sub, with zero processing other than a stretch and curve tweak.  As i blindingly obvious, I need to give my filters a wee clean, but did manage to get some flats in too, so that all may calibrate out.

Went for a full go of letting NINA run everything and all worked well.  Did have a few small issues with the flats wizard though.  Kept getting ewrrors about not being bright enough and too bright and some of the flats looked completely off the scale.  That was using it in multiple mode.  Managed to get it all sorted when doing single iterations, so not that much of a biggie.

The only thing I need to look at now (which may be there, i just havent found it yet) is having individual subs go into dedicated folders based on the filter in use......but enough waffle, here is the pic

 

[jjosefsen]

8 hours ago, Shelster1973 said:

Decided to switch target tonight and went for the venerable M101.  Managed to get 7 x 600s for G,B,L and Ha.  This is a rough and dirty Lum sub, with zero processing other than a stretch and curve tweak.  As i blindingly obvious, I need to give my filters a wee clean, but did manage to get some flats in too, so that all may calibrate out.

Went for a full go of letting NINA run everything and all worked well.  Did have a few small issues with the flats wizard though.  Kept getting ewrrors about not being bright enough and too bright and some of the flats looked completely off the scale.  That was using it in multiple mode.  Managed to get it all sorted when doing single iterations, so not that much of a biggie.

The only thing I need to look at now (which may be there, i just havent found it yet) is having individual subs go into dedicated folders based on the filter in use......but enough waffle, here is the pic

 

Your filters will let in varying amounts of  light, that is why you can do different settings for different filters.

Once you have the settings pr. filter, and you can accurately control your light source (like a flats panel), then you can just create a sequence template for your flats and run that every single time.