Suggestion for longer stabilization time with GOTO Image

[Menno555]

Robin

I use the GOTO Image rather a lot but one thing makes it less efficient.
When the mount slews to the plate solved position of the image, there is the "Wait for next live view frame" step and then the plate solve of the live view.
But more often then not, that live view is still stabilizing at that moment. Then that capture is not sharp cause of moving stars due to the mount not stabilized, resulting either in a failed plate solve or solve that's out of position.
Perhaps a 2 frames waiting time is more useful? Most of the times the captures for plate solving are not that long? (for me 500ms with normal filter to 4 seconds with Dual narrow band filter).

Menno

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Menno,

In the "SharpCap Settings" - "Hardware", you can set the settling time of the mount.

SharpCap should wait this time until the following action.
Robin, can you confirm that this settling time is used with all the tools ?

I used yesterday evening the "Goto Image" tool. That is a very good tool to quick go back to the same object.
But, I do not remember the real waiting time of SharpCap after the "end" of the GOTO before taking the image for the Plate Solve.
Yesterday in my case in was very short. I need to verify this evening the setting on my system.


Regards,
Jean-Francois

[Menno555]

Hi Jean-Francois

As far as I know that setting is for when dithering is used. It's set to 5 seconds here but when using GOTO Image, it's for sure no 5 seconds.
Maybe indeed an idea to use that setting for GOTO image too.

Menno

[lowenthalm]

I just identified this issue when running a sequence. When you use goto image in a sequence it doesn't follow-up with a plate solve to center the target. You have to call it in the next sequence step. However, since the mount hasn't stabilized it gets a randomly offset position to center on, so the plate solve doesn't work very well, being off by several minutes sometimes. I wasn't sure this was really the issue and was just about to put some code in as a work-around to see if a delay would fix it when I saw this e-mail.

A wait for mount to stabilize sequence step might be useful, if the goto functions in sequences don't wait for stabilization.

[admin]

Hi,

anything that performs a GOTO via the sequencer engine should wait for that additional settling time. The waiting goes like this

1) Issue the slew command to the mount
2) Wait up to 5 seconds for the mount to report that it is slewing
3) Wait up to 120 seconds for the mount to report that it is no longer slewing
4) Wait the time specified as additional settling time.

Note that if the movement is really short then we may never spot the mount as 'slewing', in which case step 2 waits 5 seconds and step 3 will not wait at all, but that should be fine.

Having said that, I was just checking that everything used this code and found another place where the wait might happen correctly if the mount does not immediately report that it is slewing (ie if there is a delay) . I will fix that.

cheers,

Robin