2019-08-25 Full solar disc f colour by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr[url=https:.//flic.kr/p/2h5WXfC]
[/url]2019-08-25 Full solar disc by Alexandra Hart, on FlickrNext up I took an animation of the lovely prom in the north west. Here is a single frame as the animation will take too long (I have done the processing and batch sharpened in ImPPG as that is quick, the slow bit is post processing every frame).
Sun_102128_25_08_2019 by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr
Sun_102128_25_08_2019_f colour by Alexandra Hart, on FlickrThen Monday the Sun came out very late in the day so after a BBQ I set about testing to see whether I could get the DMK41 to work with the Apple Mac computer. This is a small computer and good for travel on holiday. A few weeks ago the hubby found a capture software called OaCapture which claims to control PGR, ZWO and Imaging source cameras. We initially tested the DMK41, yes, the ZWO, yes, the Grasshopper NOOOOO as the Apple rewrote the firmware and screwed up the camera. So PGR cameras are off limits for the moment.
A couple of weeks ago I tried the DMK41 with the PST and found that I couldn't switch off automatic exposure which meant imaging was impossible. It turned out that JamesF on Stargazers Lounge wrote the program so over the last couple of weeks I have been chatting with him to get it working and overcome the little glitch to manual exposure.
So Monday I set up the PST and DMK41 and tried again. It took an hour and half to finally achieve an image. The aim is for capture only on holiday, to then transfer the data to my computer when home and post process there. I am not sure if Autostakkert or ImPGG work on an Apple, but certainly my Photoshop licence is on my computer.
oaCapture-20190826-180145_f colour by Alexandra Hart, on Flickr
oaCapture-20190826-180145_a by Alexandra Hart, on FlickrSo here are the results of the testing if anyone is interested:
1. The manual exposure issue. Initially I put the camera in the PST and then opened the software. Because it goes immediately to automatic exposure it ramped the exposure really high as I hadn't found the Sun and the telescope was dark. I changed to manual exposure via the method indicated by James but when I found the Sun it was impossible to get an exposure low enough. Even with a double stack on I was at 3 micro seconds and it was just OK. Single stack was impossible. I thought this isn't right, so I closed the program down and started up with the camera out of the telescope and facing the Sun so when the automatic exposure kicked in it didn't ramp it up. Then when I changed to manual exposure I had a good range and double stack was about 40 milli seconds and single stack exposure was possible. It seems that wherever the auto exposure changes to the manual exposure starts from that point when you change it. So it seems a bit random and exposures are not the same each time, weird but workable. Reason from James "I have dithered numerous times over whether the software should set the camera controls to its saved values when connected, or whether it should show what values are currently set. Perhaps I should make that configurable. The fun really starts when the current settings have no actual value for a newly-connected camera. Thinking about this too hard usually just makes my brain start dribbling out of my ears." full chat here https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/3395 ... nt-3699244
2. the next problem was I took several AVI and checked them for processing on my Windows PC and ran them through Autostakkert and started to post process. Nope, it seemed to record on a very high compression and the pictures were very pixellated. Next try I found in the Capture settings you need to tick both boxes, Windows compatible AND no compression. It worked.
3. It doesn't seem to remember settings once the program is closed. I need to remember to set the file path for capture, tick limit to 1000 frames and check the two boxes are ticked for the AVI settings.
4. I must remember to tick the frame limit as there is no way of knowing how many frames you are capturing as there is no counter. Usually in firecapture or ICCapture there is a little counter/clock at the side, so when you press the record button a little dial starts counting in real time how many frames you are capturing. So you can sit and watch and manually click stop when you hit 200 frames, 800 frames, 2029 frames if you wish. In this version with no counter you are blind. If you forget to hit the limit button and set where you want to stop the recording then you sit there and think, hmmm when did I hit the record button, I wonder how many frames I have recorded? The only way to tell is to hit stop and go and view the file in Autostakkert or Registax.
Overall it is a very good capture software considering it seems to be about the only one for an Apple
and at least I know James so maybe I can get him to iron out the PGR bugs for the future. I certainly recommend it, it is querky but getting there Alexandra
