Used Darks and Flats

[MikeB838]

Hi Robin,

I noticed that the flats and darks used by SC are the files which are saved, when a profile is saved.
At the start of each session I create a dark and a flat. When I disconnect the camera and connect the camera again, the live stacks look
terrible: the reason: dark and flat are very old (from the date of saving the profile) and are not the current ones.

When I use the folder monitor feature (I use it a lot), it remembers the last sources (very good), but also uses the old dark and flat (when I start SC again) and I always have to select the last ones.

So: should SC not better use the last used dark and flat files (after a new program start or a camera reconnect) ???

And please, please remember the last directory for the darks (using the folder monitor) as it is for the flats. I use the folder monitor with many
telescope sessions and have to select the according dark and flat. For selecting a flat SC starts in the old location. For selecting a dark SC always starts at the root for the camera and I always must follow format => exposure => gain to select the flat.

Thanks a lot for reading!

cheers,
Michael

[admin]

Hi Michael,

there isn't any special handling for the dark and flat files when you open a camera, but there are two things going on that you can configure that can influence this behaviour.

1) Auto restore of last used camera settings - this is an option in the SharpCap settings - sounds like you have it switched on and it will be bringing back the last used dark/flat when you open a camera. You can turn this off if you want.

2) Loading of dark/flat frames as part of a capture profile. The profile will save the settings for dark/flat as it would for any other settings, and then will reload them - in general that's how it is supposed to behave. However, if you don't like the behaviour in this case, you can edit the profile files manually (they are just text files) and remove the relevant lines for the dark and flat files. If you do that then when you load the profile, the dark and flat settings will remain unchanged. This sounds like it might be helpful for you.

The browsing for a dark frame is trying to be helpful by selecting the right folder for the camera, exposure, gain, etc, in use. Unfortunately when using the folder monitor camera, this information isn't properly available - in some cases it might be possible to retrieve it from the image file data if you are using FITS files, but not always. I will have a look to see if that can be done, or if the behaviour can be changed for the folder monitor camera to match the flat frame behaviour.

cheers,

Robin

[MikeB838]

Hi Robin,

my answer did not get through, so here is my next try:

thanks for your reply!
I use auto restore of the last settings to get my old values (gain, exposure time, format etc.), so I don't forget some settings. I normally use the same settings for each session.

I removed the entries for dark and flat in the profile text file I use for auto restore. But now - after a restart of SC or a camera reconnection -
I do not find the last dark and flat file selected, instead both show: "None". So this does not solve my problem. Did I make a mistake?

Thank you very much: that would help me a lot, if the last folder for darks (for folder monitor) could be remembered too!

Thanks and cheers,

Michael

PS: sorry that I add it here: can you please print the seconds of the time in the status bar (circeled in the picture) always with 3 digits, even when the time has no fractional part? In the moment it will be printed as eg. 1:45:32,3 and 1:45:33 and the status text on the right side of the time will jump
every second back and forth (that happens very often at the telescope and distracts a lot). Thanks for considering this

status.jpg (18.04 KiB) Viewed 634 times

[admin]

Hi Michael,

actually, I wasn't suggesting to edit those entries out of the autosave profiles, instead to edit them out of any other profiles you have (for instance I have ones for 'focus', '30s', etc). Then when you load those other profiles the dark/flat will remain unchanged. The autosave ones would keep the dark/flat entries for restoring those settings when you reopen the camera.

On the fractional part of the settings appearing - there is code to remove that and I never see it. I think what is happening in your case is that the decimal separator in the windows regional settings is set to a dot '.', but the time format in the regional settings is using a comma as a decimal separator, so the default time format is "1:45:32,3" for 1h45m32.3s. If you make the two formats consistent with each other then the fractions of a second should go away.

cheers,

Robin

[MikeB838]

Hi Robin,

thank you for your time.

I only use one profile, which I use for startup. And I do not want to juggle with different profiles, only to start with the last used dark and flat.
I was hoping of a better way.

I use a German Win10 and had to switch the decimal separator to "." (instead of ",") only to use PlateSolve3 in SC (the internal plate solver does not always succeed with my small FOV (10` x 20`)). I do not find a way to change the separator for the time format (or I'm blind at the moment).
I thought it was sth. in the software (printf with the output fixed 1 digit after the separator). So I think I have to live with it.

cheers,

Michael