Basic imaging workflow part 2


Assuming part 1 was succesfully completed, this part describes how to set up an imaging sequence in SGPro, using the autofocus and aquiring the data.

The starting point for this part is all of the required equipment connected and running, the mount is aligned and the target is selected and centered in the middle of the CCD, the image is focussed and the autoguiding is up and running.

Please note that all screenshots shown below are clickable and will show a larger version.

If you have any comments, remarks and/or suggestions, please feel free to contact me.

Setting up the sequence

As soon as autoguiding is running, it is time to set up the sequence.
In practice I set this up while the autoguider is still calibrating and do not wait for this to be finished.

The sequence panel shows all activities (events) which are scheduled to take place and in what order.

The one thing to take note of in this respect is the 2 radio buttons on the right which either rotates through the events or finsh entire events first before switching to the next event.

The sequence panel can be shown and hidden by using Ctrl+W
I usually image only 1 target, so the target list on the left only features 1 target. I always put in the name of the object which is to be imaged.

The center part shows the active target, the directory where the frames are saved (SGPro wil create subdirectories for lights, darks and bias frames when needed (=active in the sequence). The “% File Name” field allows for specific additional information to be automatically included in the file name written to the designated directory, I leave this at default.

I do however change the “Suffix” for the events in order to easily distinguish between the different types of frames taken.

The right part shows all the equipment set up and connected.

In the example shown on the left a sequence is set up which consists of 4 events.

It starts with (“Run” is flagged so the event is active) a light frame through the Ha 7nm filter of 8 minutes, binning set to 1×1 and 12 frames should be taken. As the radio button in the “Event order” field is set to “Finish entire events first” it will take all 12 frames before moving to the next event. Rotate through events will take 1 frame each from all events then start from the top of the event list until all frames are captured.

The entry in the “Suffix” field will be part of the file name written in the save directory for easy recognition of the frames afterwards.

After the 12 Ha frames are taken it will switch to the second active event which are also light frames, this time through the red filter, 5 minutes each at 1×1 binning and will take 15 consecutive frames before moving to the next event and so on until the last active event is reached, after which the sequence is complete and will stop.

You can also apply optional actions as soon as the sequence is completed, but I do not have these setup to run automatically. You could for example park the mount at a specific location or warm up the CCD camera as soon as the sequence has finished.

This part is still under construction from this point on.