Got to know a bit more about Sequence Generator Pro last night. I'd set up a single sequence to take care of focus, polar alignment, the Helix Nebula and flat frames. This was organized via equipment and user profiles using the Mosaic tool (a single panel) to determine the location of each target and add it to the sequence. I'd previously calibrated my flats with the camera and scope so the exposure length popped up with the ISO selected. Very easy.
The focus routine I'd imagined didn't quite work. On starting the scope and centering on Antares (Plate Solve 2 worked superbly all night) I had marked the sequence to pause, thinking I could use the frame and focus tool with my Bahtinov mask. However pausing the sequence in the event settings seemed to pause this feature too (buttons greyed out and inactive). After I stopped the sequence the focus tool could be used. The Zoom feature made it easy to find focus and after a few exposures using he focus tool I was done in no-time.
On resuming the sequence I centered on certain stars to adjust my PA in azimuth and altitude. PHD drift alignment worked typically well (unaffected by the event pausing). Following this the Helix Nebula plate solved perfectly, PHD2 recallibrated, and off it went.
In the middle there was a merdiain flip. Having marked "dialog based" in EQMod and deleted previous sync points I wondered if I had done enough for it to work....Yes! It worked beautifully. I just sat back and watched as it recenterd. However the images captured after the flip ended up having a completely different sky colour background (red instead of blue). The neighbour's lights perhaps influenced this (?) although the scope was pointing nearly straight up. This meant instead of 40 usuable frames I had 22.
At the end of the 40x 5 minute lights it paused so I could attach my light box and take flats. I did request it to park, which it didn't. Maybe it paused first? Attaching the light box and parking the telescope using EQMod caused PHD to go nuts when resuming the sequence and once I shut it down all was fine.
Was really much simpler than I've been doing with CdC, BYEOS, Astrotortilla, PHD2 and EQMOD. In the future I think I'll need a separate sequence altogether to use the focus tool more effectively. Happy to say this all worked on my 2011 MacBook Pro running Windows 10 (32bit) in VirtualBox.
Very keen to learn of other work flows with SGP and perhaps resolving sky colour issues when stacking in Nebulosity.
Helix Nebula
ED80, Modded Canon 40D, CLS filter
22x 5 minute subs, calibrated with flats and darks and processed in StarTools.
Investigated the original uncalibrated files and didn't find the sky background to be any different on either side of the Meridian flip (a bit darker as the night wore on) so think the error is rotating the calibrated lights before debayering? Why would that be an issue? Something about assumptions made about pixel array I guess? Anyway think I have the full 3 hours and 20 minutes now....
