Dithering with MaximDL

Ross Salinger

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Apr 23, 2016, 11:23:27 AM4/23/16

to Open PHD Guiding

After downloading PHD Dither and reading the documentation I am at a loss to figure out how to control MaximDL with the application. It seems to me that the app needs to find out when an image has been downloaded and then instruct PHD to dither the mount/guider and instruct MaximDL to wait until the guide star recovery is completed. I cannot figure out how to configure MaximDL to run the app every time it's finished an exposure. I have never tried anything like this before so any help here would be appreciated.

Rgrds-Ross

Bruce Waddington

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Apr 23, 2016, 2:38:50 PM4/23/16

to Ross Salinger, Open PHD Guiding

Hi, Ross. Sorry, I see the documentation doesn't talk about how to do this in MaximDL specifically. Basically, you can tell Maxim to run whatever script you want at whatever point in the auto-save sequence you want. Here's an example:

In this example, the script will be run after each blue frame. If you wanted to do it for every frame, you'd add the script execution in each slot. To configure it, you just click on the '...' button and navigate to the location of the script file. The script is called Dither_Script.vbs, and it must be located in the same directory as the other files that come with the distribution.

Hope this helps you get going.

Bruce

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Bruce Waddington

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Apr 23, 2016, 7:34:51 PM4/23/16

to Ross Salinger, Open PHD Guiding

Good to hear. I'm glad you asked about it because the example really should be in the doc. FWIW, this is the sort of thing that can make very good use of all the simulation tools. MaximDL has the simulator camera, and PHD2 does a complete job of simulating the whole guiding process. So you can essentially get all the dithering stuff working, including the settling parameters you want, without the risk of wasting dark sky time.

Have fun,

Bruce

From: Ross Salinger [mailto:rgsal...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2016 3:00 PM
To: 'Bruce Waddington'; 'Open PHD Guiding'
Subject: RE: [open-phd-guiding] Dithering with MaximDL

Of course I figured it out – it was way too simple. I’ve been using this software for 6 years now and NEVER noticed that scripting exit. I’ve got everything installed on the laptop, just hoping for clear skies tonight to see what happens.

Rgrds-Ross

image001.jpg

Ross Salinger

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Apr 26, 2016, 3:57:14 PM4/26/16

to Bruce Waddington, Open PHD Guiding

Of course I figured it out – it was way too simple. I’ve been using this software for 6 years now and NEVER noticed that scripting exit. I’ve got everything installed on the laptop, just hoping for clear skies tonight to see what happens.

Rgrds-Ross

From: Bruce Waddington [mailto:bw_m...@earthlink.net]
Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2016 11:39 AM
To: 'Ross Salinger' <rgsal...@gmail.com>; 'Open PHD Guiding' <open-phd...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: [open-phd-guiding] Dithering with MaximDL

Hi, Ross. Sorry, I see the documentation doesn't talk about how to do this in MaximDL specifically. Basically, you can tell Maxim to run whatever script you want at whatever point in the auto-save sequence you want. Here's an example:

image001.jpg

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