Planetary and terrestrial autofocus in NINA?!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 มิ.ย. 2024
- NINA is not optimized for planetary (or terrestrial) imaging - and yet, it contains a contrast-based autofocus method so terrestrial objects can be auto-focused on during the daytime - and planets or the moon can be autofocused on as well. This can be a handy tool - watch the video to learn more!
#astrophotography - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
As Paul Barrett said, this does keep getting better! COVID restrictions combined with foul weather here in Adelaide, South Aust. has given me a chance to work through all your NINA vids at least a couple of times over. Great work Cuiv, and I'm just SO impressed with NINA. Can't wait to see where it goes next.
Great Tutorials. Many thanks and ciao from Venezia
Holy COW Cuiv, I knew I liked you from the first vid! AWESOME AF experimental feature and really hope it gets to full release. I was looking for any software that would make my astro photography life more Lazy and now I will as a long time beginner start with NINA! I am daylight photographer almost all of my life 60 years and this is the best news I have heard in a very long time! I am so excited to start using NINA. P.S I really like Japan, I was in Nagano for a short time (to bad) and Tokyo. Photographed the Snow Monkeys, quite an experience! Also a GREAT feature is that the user could click on the object and maybe change the focus target size in NINA and instead of a full frame focus I can select just the area i want to focus on, like a planet or like you said the moon! Can't wait to try it!!!
Hi Christopher, thanks for the feedback! I will say that for planetary I also recently discovered that Sharpcap has something similar - a contrast measurement tool (in the magnifying glass icon, one of my videos shows it), and it works great for that as well. Plus you can choose a region of interest then. In NINA, you can choose a crop ratio to subframe the focus. But for pure planetary, I would recommend trying sharpcap first, maybe! Good luck!
Very nice feature! Tested it indoor with a Hubble five star. The HFR hyperbolic failed every time but yours worked first time and the focus was pinpoint. Cheers!
Cuiv keep them videos coming . i never tried this focusing method because i shoot mainly DSO's but now i will give a go on the moon
Bien expliqué, c'est parfait.
Cuiv, once again thanks for a really great video. I didn’t know this focus method existed! I’ve often wanted to refocus on the moon, but usually just slew away to some stars to do it, then slew back. But I’m confused - you say “this bit was hard to program” - are you the NINA creator then? I always thought you were just a user
This is a fascinating topic. While not the main topic of this video, you did touch on the Crop Ratio function. Can you give an example of what the parameter values would be for just using the center of the image when auto-focusing? The hover help says a value less than one, but I'm not clear what value it's looking for? It would seem that if you have a lot of vignetting and/or less than round stars at the edges, you would always want to have AF use the center of the frame. Do you know if this would work with a Nikon DSLR camera? Thanks again for another great video. The "Cuiv Show" has rocketed to the top of my pandemic entertainment list!
You can check this doc I wrote in Autofocus - it has some screenshots explaining how this crop factor works: nighttime-imaging.eu/docs/develop/site/advanced/autofocus/#af-inner-crop-ratio-and-af-outer-crop-ratio . Setting it to 0.5 would basically take the center of the frame, with one half length and width (so one quarter area) of the full sensor. If subframes are supported by the camera, it will use that, otherwise it will just restrict the star detection to the center. If your object of interest is indeed in the center it could be useful, but if it's an extended nebula, you'd probably want AF across the frame, as a compromise. I'll soon have some more videos about further settings affecting AF, and filter offsets, to keep you entertained :p
This is fantastic and a great addition to whats already a fantastic program. Can you see it ever being used with SCT's? If it could it would be a lifesaver!
Nice! Sky X level stuff! I think they were the first to auto focus on the moon.
Hey Cuiv. Reflector owner here! You mention that this works better with a subject that has a low enough exposure time to ensure not getting over saturated. Have you actually confirmed that this will not work with a reflector on a very bright subject, aka, "the moon"? This would be so great for planetary photography since getting a solid focus is sometimes such a challenge.
I tried once on the moon - the result was "close,but no cigar"... I tried on the moon with a 200mm lens, and focus was perfect. So unfortunately it doesn't look like it's going to work (but will free to give it a go!)
Hi Cuiv, your series for NINA is so very helpful, especially to such a beginner as me. In your comments at the end, you mentioned that for planetary you would then use Sharpcap or Firecapture. I just want to understand this correctly. If you were doing planetary video capture, do you have to leave NINA and use one of the other two apps? Are you still using NINA at all while using the Video capturing apps? I already have the ASI Studio app which also has planetary imaging mode, I wonder if that would also work in replacement of Sharpcap or Firecapture? So far I have not installed either of those two apps. In theory, I don't need Sharpcap for polar alignment because I have the new iOptron CEM40EC which includes their iPolar camera and software to plate solve polar alignment. Thanks again for all you are doing!!
Hi John, thanks for the feedback! Basically NINA is not good at video and high framerates - so once I'm ready and in focus I'd typically close NINA, and just open Sharpcap, FireCapture, or ASI Studio (which are good at capturing raw video from the camera). I could actually keep NINA open, to control focus and filterwheel from NINA, but making sure the camera in NINA is disconnected. I hope this makes sense!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek It does, again I appreciate your sharing all these details and important elements to the entire process. It's so helpful to understand all the pieces to this puzzle as we work to push forward to higher standards and achievment of the craft.
10/10 as always
Thank you :D
Now, that's really slick. I'll have to try it on my Sky Watcher 100mm triplet . It just might make a planetary imager out of me yet lol.
Let me know how it goes! Make sure to have very short exposure times on the Moon if you try it on that. Note that you may get frustrated though - very experimental! Might be best to try on a terrestrial target first.
Great vids Cuiv, keep them coming. I was thinking, since this feature does not work good on telescopes with central obstruction, what if you create a cover for the scope and create a whole off center? I did that once for solar imaging with my SCT and it worked good. Wouldn't that circumnavigate the issue of having a central obstruction?
That makes sense - as long as the off-center hole is not over one of the spokes (for a Newt, RC, or CC), it should indeed work fine. That's a great idea! My Newt dust cover actually has such holes pre-drilled, so I will try that when I get the chance!
Cool, report back please, I'd really like to know if it works out.
I checked my dust cover and what I though was a small hole with a removable cover... was not. I will need to make some kind of mask at some point...
@@moxican7 I have come to the party a little late, but I have successfully used this to focus my Skywatcher 200pds on the Moon using the cover which has an off-centre hole . I have yet to try it on a planet
Is focuser offset between filters when measured on a close target going to be the same as the offsets on a distant target?
The light ray angles would be different, and I think you could get different figures. I would suggest using a far away object...
This just gets better and better, I never knew I could use it for the moon, cant wait to try it out, incidently I never see you using autobacklash? is there a reason for this, I tried it the other day and it came back 29 L 0 R.
It really is experimental, you may have to adjust settings and get frustrated - so only do it if you have an hour to lose (like during the full moon!). As for the auto-backlash compensation - my EAF has too much backlash for it to work well, and I'm too lazy to get my lens setup outside (widefield in a white zone just doesn't work well in broadband). I'll get to it! Note that if you get two very different values (like you are), it may be wrong, and you should use the "manual" method I showed in the last video.
@@CuivTheLazyGeek My plan is to get to know how everything works even if it means wasting clear nights so that come Autumn im ready
@@paulbarrett423 Use full moon nights!
That looks a great addition. One of my refractors has an absolute focuser. The other uses a JMI motorfocus with a Shoestring Astronomy add on for USB control. This is a relative focuser. Could NINA use this. APT has an emulation mode that allows autofocus to be used. SGP won’t connect to it. Maxim will work through Focusmax but can be a bit unstable on my PC. A good autofocus routine that supports relative focusseers in NINA would be fantastic.
Yes, it would be possible to develop that - but I do think it should not be up to each imaging software to do so (kudos to APT for doing so), but there should be a software layer for that, or it should be part of the Ascom driver (like HitecAstro's DC Focus Controller). I do not know how the USB interfaces to DC motors work, but I imagine that by equating length of the move (in seconds) to an absolute position change, something like that could be accomplished. Not having such a DC motor, I won't even try to develop anything like that in NINA!
Cuiv, Lazy Geek in Japan I think your idea about time/movement linking is exactly how APT does it. Sadly I don’t have the skills to gettinvolved and add it myself. Maybe if I raise it on the Discord group someone will give it a try. Looking forward to trying the contrast detection method next time I’m doing some lunar imaging. I just watched your flats video too and I’m definitely going to try that out. I spent yesterday getting used to the interface and it’s growing on me. Unfortunately here in France we have reached the point where astronomical dark is non-existent for the next 12 weeks.
Sorry for my ignorance, what is an absolute focuser and a relative focuser? I have a lakeside focuser from Ian King, what would this be?
Julian Matthews Absolute have a stepper motor and the exact position is kno wn. They can be moved a set number of steps by software. I think yours is an absolute model. Relative ones have a dc motor and are just ontrolled by the length of a pulse sent to them by the software. This is less precise as there exact position isn’t known. I think the latest beta of NINA adds the feature I was asking for but not tried it yet - clouds again!
I have a Refractor telescope "SW EVOSTAR ED80 / 600" so this setting would work for me. Now it is a pity that we have bad weather for the coming weeks, otherwise I could have tested this
I hope you'll get clear skies soon!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I have a question about OFFSET - my Camera is a ZWO ISA294MC Pro and I don't know how much offset to set in Camera setting. Is there a formula for this to calculate ?
@@-Jantje The camera side offset? ZWO used to have several offset points depending on gain, but then then set it to a specific offset across all gains. The easiest is to just open the camera ASCOM settings, select Unity Gain, and then click on Advanced to see the corresponding offset value. You can then use that as is. Too low an offset can cause black pixels, too high an offset very slightly diminishes the dynamic range of the sensor (e.g. too high is better than too low). I used to own a 294MC Pro, which is great in darker areas but was horrible to work with in a white zone!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Thank you very much for a Clear answer.
Ok, according to ASCOM this is - Gain 120, Offset 30, USB Limit 40 on Unity gain