Flats Calibration Wizard - Anomaly

Sequence Generator
1

I’m having a problem getting the Flats Calibration Wizard to save calibration data directly to a chosen profile under version 3.0.2.94. Either I’m doing something wrong (not for the first time or last), I’ve misunderstood the User Guide or there’s a bug?

Objective
Populate a pre-existing Equipment Profile (named QSI683_f7) with Flats data by using the Flats Calibration Wizard.

Sequences
Open SGPro and connect the QSI 683WSG CCD camera and its internal filter wheel, only. The remaining equipment not required for the purposes of this exercise. Cool the camera and attached the manual lightbox. As the filter wheel contains both broadband and NB filters a neutral density filter must be removed between the sets of filter types. I therefore made this a two-pass programme; first to the broadband then the NB set.
At the end of each run of the wizard the ‘Save’ option reported that the data had been successfully store against the required sequence or profile based of the initial selection of either ‘Current Sequence’ or ‘QSI683_f3’ accordingly.

After each save the Equipment Manager utility was used to interrogate the Flats data, as reported within each of the following sections.

Flat Calibration Wizard – Saved to Pre-Existing Profile – pass 1
Having created and saved a basic equipment profile called ‘QSI683_f7’ the Flats Calibration Wizard was run against the broadband filter set L, R, G, B at binning 1 x 1 and 2 x 2. When the wizard finished the ‘Save’ was selected and returned with the message “Flats calibration data successfully saved to profile (QSI683_f7).” The expected result would be a broadband flats calibration data enhanced profile.

Using the Equipment Manager this profile was inspected to confirm that the flats data had been saved. It had not, which was the same result experienced several times before and which prompted the running of this test.

Flat Calibration Wizard – Saved to Current Sequence – pass 1
The Flats Calibration Wizard was run again for the broadband filters but this time the data was saved to ‘Current Sequence’ rather than a profile. The current sequence had however been populated with the default profile; this being ‘QSI683_f7’.

Flat Calibration Wizard – Saved to Pre-Existing Profile – pass 2
With the now broadband enhanced equipment profile ‘QSI683_f7’ selected the Flats Calibration Wizard was run against the narrowband filter set Ha7, OIII, SII & Ha12 at binning 1 x 1 and 2 x 2. When the wizard finished the ‘Save’ was selected and returned with the message “Flats calibration data successfully saved to profile (QSI683_f7).” The expected result would be a fully populated profile, i.e. broadband and narrowband enhanced data.

Using the Equipment Manager this profile was inspected to confirm that the flats data had been saved. It had not, the broadband data was still in placed but no addition of the narrowband data had taken place.

Flat Calibration Wizard – Saved to Current Sequence – pass 2
The Flats Calibration Wizard was run again for the narrowband filters and saved once more to the ‘Current Sequence’ rather than a profile.

When the wizard finished the ‘Save’ was selected and returned with the message “Flats calibration data successfully saved to current sequence.”

Using the Equipment Manager, the QSI683_f7 profile was inspected to confirm that the flats data had been saved; It had, thus both the broadband and narrow band flats calibration data was now populated.

User Error or Bug?
The sequences undertaken above seem to indicate that the Flats Calibration Wizard is not saving calibration data to profiles. Instead requiring that the save to Current Sequence is necessary, despite the success dialogue being report when a profile is the User’s selection.

I have no recollection of this being a problem under version 2 of SGPro but had not employed this functionality under version 3 until version v3.0.2.94, so do not know if it was manifest earlier.

Log file: sg_logfile_20181001154331 attached for assessment.
sg_logfile_20181001154331.txt (136.8 KB)

2

Me again,

I’ve just watched a YouTube tutorial on using this wizard “SGPRo Flats Wizards Part 1 of 2”, which clearly shows the behaviour I was expecting but sadly did not get.

I notice that my post has had lots of views but no replies as yet, so remain curious about what’s going wrong, i.e. me or SGPro. Any takers please?

3

Hi Dave,

I think I may have discovered what is going on here, as I was having the same issue with Flats Calibration Wizard.
Firstly, I have set my default location for Profiles to something other than the default location (d:\sgpro_profiles, rather than C:\Users%username%\AppData\Local\SequenceGenerator) and this is where the issue arises.
After running the wizard and pressing save profile and receiving the confirmation that the settings were saved to the profile, I checked the modified date of my profile file and noticed that the files’s date/time did not match the current date/time parameters.

I then looked in the default location “C:\Users%username%AppData\Local\SequenceGenerator” and low and behold, there was a profile file there with the current date/time stamp!

It transpires, (for me anyway), that the wizard saves the profile file to the default location, despite of what location, the user may have set. This results in there being two versions of the same profile, (one old one and one new one)
When the user subsequently proceeds to open a profile via Equipment Profile Manager, SGPro will then retrieve the profile file from your chosen location, which is now out of date and lacks the flats exposure data.

To have the Flats Calibration Wizard save the settings to a file in your preferred location, you either have to run the wizard and then select Save Sequence as Profile or copy and paste the files from the default location to you chosen location , once you have completed the wizard.

I hope this makes sense and helps?

4

Hi Necrosis,

Thanks for your posting and findings. You’ve definitely hit the nail on the head, and I fully support your suggestions for getting SGPro to work as one would have expected.

Your findings, in my mind, highlight/confirm this as a minor bug in the system that may or may not warrant our fine development team considering for a fix.

Thanks again for taking the time and trouble to get to the bottom of this issue and confirming that I was not going mad into the bargain.

I really cannot congratulate the development team enough for creating this great programme. It has completely elevated my enjoyment of Astro-imaging.

Clear skies.

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5

Thanks for finding that odd issues @necrosis! It may also explain a random crash that I have yet to track down. I’ll address this.

Thanks,
Jared

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6

Thanks Jared,

I’d been scratching my head about this anomaly for some time but no one else seemed to pick up on my posting until @necrosis replied with his analysis of the problem.

It’s good to hear that you will be addressing this in a future update.

Thanks,
Dave

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7

I was just about to post a new thread about this same issue, and I have experienced the same problem and behavior. Will this be addressed in a future release?

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