Sequence
You can see here the plugin that you can use together with MaximDL 3.06. The main thing
is, that you can make a sequence and move the star a little between each exposure.Tracking
will have to be active in MaximDL until you can use Sequence ! So first located a guide
star, calibrate it etc.
First you will have to set the sequence settings, explained below. If you did that, you
can start the sequence. The guide star position is plotted in the picture box and the
color is changed for every exposure. So you can see with a quick glance wether the
exposure was OK or not. Please set the size of the box in ScaleError. The tracking errors
are displayed in the picturebox below. Please set the vertical size in Scale Cumerr. For
long exposures you can see the periodic error here.
If you have unchecked "Update Screen", then nothing is displayed. You may want
to use this if you use the AO7 with very high frequence and you want to save computer
speed for AO7 controll.
The Average error displayed left of the pictureBox is the average error since the
beginning of the exposure.
The Average last 10 is the average error of the last 10 measurements of the guide star.
Overshoot is a very important and interesting number. It shows you, wether you are
constantly over or undershooting. If you are overshooting, reduce the agressivness setting
in MaximDL. It is calculated from the last 10 measurements.If you have the perfect
agressivness setting found, it should sometimes report positive, sometimes negative
values.
If you click on <Set Sequence> button you will see the following screen:
It is more or less easy to use. For every exposure you can now set some new features:
MaxErrorPV:
Here you can set the maximum track error. If this error is exceeded, the image will not be
downloaded and the image will be repeated until it is finished without getting an error.
MaxError 10x Average:
This is the maximum error allowed for an average on the last 10 exposures. Make sure you
make these settings so high that you really won't be able to use the exposure anyway if
these settings ar exceeded.
It makes sense to allow for a larger error if you make LRGB images for the color channels.
Why did we include this feature ? We don't want to finish a 10m exposure if you have a
wind-error in the first 30 seconds and we want to sleep during the sequence which can take
one or 2 hours. So the efficency in bad conditions (wind, variable seeing) is much higher
if you use such an abort procedure.
SetFilename:
Please note that images are overwritten !! So please use a new name vor every sequence !
Pixel Movement per Exposure:
This moves the guide star between each exposure. Please note, that it is Pixel on the
guide chip, not on the main chip !! The pixel movement should be such, that it is always
uneven movement on the main chip. Since the pixel size on the guide chip of our ST10 is
13.75 x 16 it makes sense to use a value of 1.4 if you use 2x binning. The Pixel size is
then 2x6.8=13.6 on the main chip, thus you are moving 1.4 Pixels on the main sensor in Y
and 1.64 Pixel in X. You could also use values of 2.3-2.7 or 3.3-2.7, just take care not
to be to close to a full number.Using numbers larger than 1 will also kill bad pixels if
you do a median later.
Then, bevore adding the exposures you should double them (use the double size command in
MaximDL). The align the images and click on bicubic sample in MaximDL.
Wait for Filter Wheel:
Please input the time MaximDL takes to turn the filter wheel
Fixed wait time between each exposure to settle for tracking:
Bevore the next exposure is started the star is shifted (see Pixel movement). This allows
the tracker to recenter the star. However since there is another check (it only starts if
it is within maxerror) you may set this to zero.
Maximum Error until exposure starts:
The exposure starts only, if the X-error and the Y-error is below this value. It is checke
after each new exposure.
Wait time between image ready and save:
I found out, that sometimes the exposures are not saved because the computer is still
bussy with displaying the image on the screen. In this case, increase this value.
Guider delay set in MaximDL:
If you start a new exposure, MaximDL waits for a fixed time. I did not found out where you
can change this setting in Maxim but it is around 3 seconds. It is only to have the same
time-display in Maxim and in Sequence, not critical
Download instructions:
Simply install Sequence like every other program. Please check after installation that the
file ExternalMaxim.ini is not write-protected.