Quote:
Originally Posted by Oscar in Bin
I recently purchased an Aurora panel from Gerd. Excellent prompt service. I run it on an f7 system with one ND filter and that gives me exposure times in excess of 6secs on colours when binned 2x2.
John
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Thanks John. I made contact with Gerd to seek some information on the panels he produces. He made comment that foil based flat panels with adjustable brightness controllers will result in an unreliable light source (foil brightness will vary too much over time). The only way to use these panels is at full brightness and utilise ND filters to drop the intensity as required.
It seems that only the Alnitak (now Optec Inc) flat panels support remote adjustment of brightness control. The important aspect here is that they don't use foil based flat panels. The challenge is the Flat-Man L is a tight fit to illuminating at 12.5" scope. 315mm optic on the 330mm Flat-Man L, so the only option is to go with a Flat-Man XL 18"x18" which is double the cost of the 480mm Aurora flat panel. Seems Gerd's solution is a hands down winner.
Based on your configuration (F/7 2x2 bin), I'd say I will be able to get away with one ND too. I'll purchase two to be sure but at F/9 I doubt I'll need it with the current configuration. Thanks for the input.
Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
So you're going to mount the panel on the inside of the dome permanently, park the scope then move the dome to face the aperture in parked position and shoot your flats?  |
Hi Marc, I'm undecided as to where to mount it. I've highlighted the challenges in the previous post with dome mounting but I'm sure some ingenuity could make it work with an electrical contact between the dome and walls when at a certain position such as home. The wall would be easier but then it still needs to be high enough to ensure the aperture can easily reach it. The current telescope park position would likely meet this requirement but it will need some testing.
ACP 7.0 supports fully automated sky, dome and artificial light flats and I'll sure be looking to leverage this as I do today for sky flats. So what you mention is correct. The script can move both scope (Alt/Az) and dome (Alt) to a preset configuration, turn on the light source, tweak brightness (if applicable) on a per filter basis if desired, take your flats including rotated flats at different PAs), turn off the light source, then park dome and scope before powering all gear off. That would be a dawn scenario. The reverse will be applied for dusk.
My "light on" and "light off" command will simply be a terminal session string to the remote power switch to turn the flat panel power adapter on and off. Basic stuff.
Below is a snippet of the ACP config help to control this.
Flat Panel or Screen Section
Before editing this, run your light control program in a command window and make sure you can control the panel or screen and write down the exact commands given to do that. Testing this now will save you pain later.
- DoFlatAlt & DoFlatAz - The alt/az coordinates needed for your scope to point at the panel or screen. For the FlipFlat, just pick something semi-horizontal. If these are commented out, the scope will not be moved. This allows you to manually put a light box onto the scope, for example.
- DomeAz - If your dome needs to be rotated to a particular azimuth for light source positioning, indicate that here (otherwise leave it commented out).
- PerFilterBrightness - This is a comma-delimited list of numeric values corresponding to each filter in your system. The values are in the same order as the filters. This lets you vary the light source brightness for each filter.
- LightCtrlProgram - The full path and name for the light command line program for your light source (AACmd.exe for the FlipFlat/FlatMan). If this is empty or commented out, no program will be run to control the light.
- LightOnCommand - The string to be given after the light control command to turn the light on. For the FlipFlat, include the C command to close the cover so the light source is in front of the optics. You can include #BRT# in this string, and ACP will substitute the per-filter brightness from the PerFilterBrightness list for the current filter.
- LightOffCommand - The string to be given after the light control command to turn the light off. For the FlipFlat, include the O command to Open the cover so the light source is moved away from being in front of the optics.
- LightOnDelay - Time in seconds to wait after the light is turned on for its brightness to stabilize. EL Panels especially can take some time to reach full brightness especially when it is cold.