Voyager Automation

[PRejto]

Hello,

I'm new to using Voyager...so far, impressed! I do have a question.

When I look at images in CCDInspector I'm not understanding what I'm seeing in terms of altitude. When images are collected by TheSkyX I see altitude reported in degrees exactly how it is represented on TheSkyX's chart if one clicks on the target. Photos take through Voyager, using TheSkyX's camera are completely different.

What am I missing/forgetting?

Thanks!
Peter

[The_bluester]

That is interesting, I use Voyager as well, I only recently bought CCD Inspector and had not noticed that. I have no idea if it is anything to do with Voyager.

I just checked a sub from a couple of nights ago and CCDI says it is at 4 degrees, 5 seconds altitude, but the information in the FITS header says 24 08 55 (Lower than I normally shoot, but about right) SO what is in the header matches what I would expect. I do not know where or how CCDI calculates that figure. The target I looked at does not even go that low here (It is circumpolar)

[PRejto]

Okay, that is quite interesting and confirms what I'm seeing in my 2 year old copy of Voyager. How old is your copy?

I ask because I contacted Paul Kanevsky who wrote CCDI. He pointed me to a similar post in the CCDI Forum back in January of 2023. In that post he wrote the following:

"the (Voyager) OBJCTALT keyword is specified without a sign. CCDInspector is following the SBFITSEXT 1.0 standard where the format of altitude, azimuth, etc. requires a + or a - sign in front of the degrees. I went into a FITs editor and changed OBJCTALT and OBJCTAZ in your image to include a + sign in the front, and now CCDI reads these properly."


Interestingly, I looked for the keyword OBJCTALT in images collected in TheSkyX camera add on, not using Voyager, and this keyword doesn't exist in my images. Only the keyword CENTALT is shown. Yet, these images open fine in CCDI. I've asked Paul about that but without any reply yet.

In January 2023 the guy who originally wrote to Paul said he was going to contact Leo at Voyager and try for a fix. That may have happened (or not). I'd certainly update if it is fixed...otherwise I didn't see a pressing need after looking over the change logs.

Thanks for your post!

Peter

[The_bluester]

I would say not implemented yet (My copy is up to date) and I don't know how high on a list of changes it would be for Leo. I might contact him via the support channel and see if he is actually aware of it.

I would honestly call it a bit of a weird one to have a requirement for a sign on either alt or az, given all azimuth are positive numbers (Unlike Dec, where I can see there is a sign in the FITS header) and negative alt numbers would not be useful for any target to be imaged.

[PRejto]

Thanks Paul.

Well, I'm only going on what Paul K. said about the standard way of notating this in the fits keyword.

So, your copyis up to date and it isn't fixed. Sure, if you don't mind contacting Leo through support that ight be quite helpful. Hopefully he will update this.

Thanks,

Peter

[PRejto]

Paul, I wrote to Leo and it seems he is willing to update the software, so no need for you to go after this as well.

Thanks!

Peter

[The_bluester]

Actually, I emailed him too, hopefully something for a future release to have a setup checkbox to add the sign if required.

[PRejto]

Done!

https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/x_c3CxkAPrtJQ1pBc8f4FytA3d?domain=f orum.starkeeper.it

[The_bluester]

I hadn't spotted that the format change was applied. I was happy, I emailed Leonardo a couple of days ago as Robotarget did not allow for the (New) negative gain values that ZWO have introduced for my camera which I wanted to use, I could set it elsewhere in Voyager. He included that in this change as well.