Dithering Costs a Whole Frame

[donboy]

v. 3.2.6109

LSLog.txt

(11.07 KiB) Downloaded 107 times

[donboy]

Well still the same with v.3.2.6110.

here are logs for this version:

LSLogv.3.2.6110.txt

(10.92 KiB) Downloaded 119 times

v.3.2.6110.txt

(45.27 KiB) Downloaded 129 times

[admin]

Hi,

Okay, thanks for those logs. The live stacking log looks exactly as I'd expect it to look if everything was working correctly. I think the problem here is not that the life stacking is failing to resume its just that it happens at a point which causes confusion.

Let me explain in a bit more detail.

When the program receives a message from all PHD2 that the dithering operation is complete and the mount is settled, it sets the exposure back to the full exposure time but it doesn't and pause live stacking at this point. That's because there is a possibility that the first frame that arrives after the exposure has been increased might be a short one second exposure which we don't want to include in the stack.

Essentially, once the exposure has been set back to the full. Live stacking still shows as paused but it will and pause automatically as soon the first full-length frame finishes and that first full-length frame after the dinner will be included in the stack.

So I think the problem is just that the fact that the stacking still appears to be pause during that first full-length frame after the dinner is misleading as it makes the user think that the dithering hasn't finished properly when in fact it has.

For now I'm hoping that with the latest build you can just ignore that glitch and I will try and work out a way to fix it in a more satisfactory way for the next version.

Hope that makes sense, Robin

[poolemarkw]

Hi Robin,

Finally got a chance to test it and it's working GREAT for me. I'm doing 2 minute exposures right now and the dither consumed 15 seconds before live stacking continued.

THANKS!!

Mark

[chongo228]

I'm set up right now using it....so far it's perfect. I'm about 6 Dithers in and they take around 12 seconds. Thanks for the update!


Update......
The very next dither after posting that above I ran into a problem. The only thing I think I did differently was I had PHD2 in another window overlayed above SC in a half/half screen so I could see them communicated while the dither happened. Once it was done PHD2 went back to guiding and SC never started Live stack back up. The pause button still said resume and the dither status field said "Dithering (up to 20 pixels)" and never went back to the time between dithers. I waited for frame after dither to complete it's 300 second exposure to see it it would switch back to stacking like you said two post above. It never did.....it ended up dropping that frame.

It's like PHD2 never told it when it finished....attached is my log file. It happened around 10:21pm. If it helps this was taken from the log under the live stacking. I get what you said above which is why I waited for the next frame to finish even though I wanted to hit resume. I don't understand....the log reads like everything is working.

10:11:42 PM INFO Detected 135 in the stacked image, mean FWHM is 3.635069
10:11:42 PM INFO Detected 132 stars in the frame image, mean FWHM is 5.174622
10:11:42 PM INFO Calculated Transform : dx=-0.4, dy=-2.1, angle=0.0, scale=1.0000
10:16:43 PM INFO Detected 135 in the stacked image, mean FWHM is 3.635069
10:16:43 PM INFO Detected 132 stars in the frame image, mean FWHM is 5.217927
10:16:43 PM INFO Calculated Transform : dx=-0.5, dy=-3.1, angle=0.0, scale=1.0000
10:16:44 PM INFO 1376.9482433 elapsed since last dither, dithering now.
10:16:57 PM INFO PHD2 reports the mount has settled after dithering.
10:21:43 PM WARN Frame not stacked because : Live Stacking is paused - PHD2 is currently dithering.
10:21:44 PM INFO un-pausing stacking because dithering is complete.
10:26:45 PM INFO Detected 135 in the stacked image, mean FWHM is 3.635069
10:26:45 PM INFO Detected 132 stars in the frame image, mean FWHM is 5.219838
10:26:45 PM INFO Calculated Transform : dx=0.9, dy=-12.3, angle=0.0, scale=1.0000

[admin]

Hi,

Thanks for the logs. I will have a new version in a couple more days that will hopefully shed some more light on this issue if it happens again – I have been adding more logging to allow me to track how this function works at the same time as I've been tidying up the code to improve the user notifications about the stack resuming.

Glad to hear it is (at least mostly) working.

Cheers, Robin

[donboy]

Hi Robin,

For the last three nights dithering in v.6110 is working. The only difference from the previous nights when it didn't perform properly is that I was using the ASI1600 mono and these last few days the ASI294MC Pro.
Hope that may be a clue to why it didn't initially work when using the ASI1600mono.

Don

[chongo228]

Since the first night I tried it and had problems I have spent about 4 nights and around 16 hours of data collection without any problems. I'm almost wondering if I did something that first night to cause the problem....I am not sure. The 1sec dithering has worked perfectly and I really didn't adjust any settings or do anything that would have changed PHD2 after that first night. Just wanted to report back that it's working for me very well.

[cuivenion]

I used it two nights this week, no problems here.

[admin]

Thanks for the positive reports – good to hear that it is working well

Cheers, Robin