Hi!
I have trouble getting my Mosaic right.
Version: Beta46
DDC on
Mode: Mosaic.

Look at my screenshot.
What goes wrong?

Thanks!
Paul.

- if you want to be removed from our records and no longer receive this warning,

please contact support at: <support email address>

So, I've sent an email about that to the support email address. Then a week later I've got another reminder. Sent my 2nd email to support. Now I've got 3rd email with the reminder about my trial licence expiring soon.

I'm not sure why my 2 emails were ignored, though perhaps it's for the best as I've changed my mind again and actually want to purchase full licence after all.

Is there a way to contact Astro Pixel Processor other than their official email address (since my emails sent to that address seem to vanish)?

I can see a post on the forum about such an error from two years ago but without any apparent resolution. Any ideas @mabula-admin? I'm using beta 45 on Apple Silicon.

many thanks in advance for any advice, Jon

Looks great !

JC

Just get in Gemini ai give it all the information, by that I men the RC Astro CLI dev docs which are in the download and ask it to build you a GUI, it’s really easy I did it and works a treat, I actually took it one step further and built a full processing app using all the best tools out there, screenshots below of my standalone Xterminator CLI UI, and one of my full app.

I've been thinking about your issue of vertical bands through bright stars for a few days - trying to remember where I have seen this before.

I have a vague memory of someone posting a similar problem some years ago (probably on Cloudy Nights). I think the conclusion was that the bright stars were heavily overexposed and this was causing errors in the ADC processor on the sensor chip.

I'd take this with a grain of salt, as I may be misremembering the details (my memory is not what it used to be). But it is suggestive that the bands are only happening with the bright stars.

It looks like you are using a newtonian - these are usually pretty fast and it would be easy to oversaturate the bright stars.

There are a few things you could do to check this out. The first thing would be to load up a single frame into the APP viewer. Zoom in on a bright star and move the mouse across it and check the pixel values ( the x, y, m reading at the top of the viewer - m is the pixel value). For a sixteen bit camera the maximum value is 65536 (possibly modified for pedestal/offset). Its ok to have a pixel or two maxed out, but if there is a significant area maxed out then your exposure time is too long.

The more comprehensive test would be to do a couple of test runs on the same fov, The first would use the same exposure time as you previously used (perhaps just grab the first 20 frames of the run that shows the problem). Then do another run with one quarter the exposure time and four times as many frames.

If the first run has the issue and the second does not then it may be just a simple matter of rethinking your exposure times. Same total imaging time, but shorter exposures and more frames. I would add that one of the cameras I regularly shoot with is a 2600mc, and some of my favourite images have come from a large number of short exposures.

Hope this helps.

JC

Its possible to use the rc-astro standalone cli with APP now. I'm currently using it to try and process a comet image (without much success as my data is pretty poor).

I just process the data to integration, pop open a terminal window without leaving APP, run the desired tool, switch back to APP and load the tool's output file as if it was a previous integration. Then just carry on as normal.

Alternatively, its easy to bulk process your raw images before using APP, if that is preferred.

Obviously it would be more convenient as a plugin where APP acted as a graphic front end - and I'm not one of those fanboys who wants to push everyone to use terminal commands.

I'm just saying it is now an option available to everyone and it requires very little knowledge of terminal commands.

JC