Tonight while shooting an M42 sequence with a high number of short subframes, and trying to sort what i could get done before both mount limit and weather became factors, a “nice to have” came to mind :
Could the “Time Remaining” calculation be updated to include factors beyond the simple exposure time X number of frames? Either via user configurable settings, some calculation of average times spent doing other things, or a combination of both.
Download, dither, guider settle, autofocus every n frames or n minutes, filter change (and accompanying autofocus if enabled), and several other factors all add to the “actual” time remaining.
Perhaps SGP could monitor a few of these, and keep an “average” and account for it? Perhaps they could be an equipment or session option, like “Allow n Seconds for guider settle”? Something along those lines.
I asked the same question some time ago - (Maxim DL has the ability to store times for different activities) The simple way around is to just stopwatch the time from the exposure end to the next one (including download, dither etc) and enter that as the download time in the equipment profile. That won’t account for focusing but that activity is less frequent and has less impact on the overall time, especially if you use filter offsets between filter changes etc.
Ken and Jared did say they were looking at the possibility of setting start and end points based on position, like altitude.
Thanks for the request. We have added download times to the camera settings but will probably not do much else here. Mostly because it’s time we have to spend on something we feel has little value (because it is so imprecise). While it’s possible to enter all sorts of time fields for flips, auto focus, etc, the bottom line is that most people use temperature deltas to trigger AF (variable number of AF runs), solve times are different in different areas of the sky and settle times will always vary due to dither amount and seeing conditions.
That makes sense, Ken. I was approaching it as a “rough guess > no guess” thing, but you’re right…it’s difficult to commit resources to a task that, ultimately, still isn’t going to “get things right” as it were. heh
I think buzz’s solution of getting a feel for my own situation and using that to “fudge” a download time is perfectly workable.
