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13: KStars/INDI setup for NikonNikon has always been told to be hard to control from a KStars/EKOS. For me almost everything started to work direct after some basic setup. But the details took long time to understand and solve. The isn't very much documentation how to setup a Nikon camera and there are a lot of different models. Some say that the SD card must be removed from the camera others say not. Let's take a look at the setup, there are two alternatives. I found an alternative on Cloudy Night's forum, it's an older system and not exactly how I setup the system. You find it here: Scroll down to the bottom of the page 1 and follow the screen dumps. Downloading timeout:
After the exposure is finished it start to download the image from the camera. Here it took very long time and nothing happened, it got a timeout. After a while it continue with the next image and then it succeed. I also noticed that it temporarily changed the setup to use FITS format instead for Native which it was from the beginning. 
Looking in the folder where it stores the images I can see that it downloaded even the first image. But stored it in the format FITS, not native NEF which it was setup to do. The next coming images store in NEF format. INDI Control panel:There are tons of different setups for the camera and Nikon is even more difficult than the Canon I used earlier. The most important menus are the Options and Image settings. Menu of these settings looks to be taken from the camera. If you change something it will turn back later, even if you save your changes. Make the changes in the camera instead. The camera is setup to RAW files, Nikon's NEF files. No mirror delay, single shot and most basic settings. I use ISO 400, maybe ISO 200 could use the cameras high dynamic better. Options menu: 
This worked for me for my Nikon D800 DSLR camera:
Image Settings menu, with SD card in camera (not recommended): 
There are two different figures for the sensors size:
The image resolution is what must be used. The "extra" pixels are for the cameras internal testing. It's the same for the Canon 6D camera I have but other numbers. Other settings:
The "Capture Target" > "SD Card" is the SD card in the camera. After the camera has captured the image and send it to KStars it delete the image. My Nikon D800 have both a SD card and a Compact Flash card. I tested, both works. After I took a sequence I checked the camera's SD card, nothing was stored in it, so KStars erased the images after it used it. The download speed is about 4 seconds, but that is not all. If I take 60x60 seconds exposures and doing auto guiding with a dither for every 3rd image it take 74 minutes for that sequence. There is no mirror delay or other delay activated. That is 13 seconds between each photo. These settings worked very fine the first three months, then suddenly the camera didn't transfer the image files to KStars. Notice how many pixels this camera have, 36Mpixels, it's eating the memory in a fast pace. Image Settings menu, without SD Card (recommended): 
I have read that people say that there must not be any SD card in the camera, it cause trouble. Even my friend who also have a Nikon D800 say so. He said that he must remove the memory cards from the camera to have it to work. He has it connected to a Windows system, not Linux as I do. I do a test with these alternative settings. There are two different figures for the sensors size:
The image resolution is what must be used. The "extra" pixels are for the cameras internal testing. It's the same for the Canon 6D camera I have but other numbers. Other settings:
It's a bit confusing, I had to test different settings until I got something that worked for my camera and version of KStars 64-bit. SD Image = Save is a bit strange, better with = Ignore, but that didn't work för me. Settings menu: 
And these are under the Settings menu. I got it to work almost perfect, testing with 120x60 seconds. I could be some drop of images and I don't understand why. Very strange. Capturesetting's 1, in camera menu: 
Note: Camera settings:
Lossless Compressed give a file size of 40 MB, Uncompressed give a file size of 70 MB, Compressed hasn't anything to do in astronomyphotographing. If Nikon doesn't fooling us Lossless is identical to Uncompressed after unpacked it. But it take more processing both in camera and control computer. I prefer to preserve hard disk space and hope Lossless Compressed doesn't introduce star eating. The built in AF-assist illuminator is set to Off in the camera, still it indicate it's On here. But doesn't matter, I don't use the camera's internal focus system. Capturesetting's 2, in camera menu: 
Note: Camera settings:
The delay can be setup for 1, 2 or 3 seconds, I think 2 seconds will be enough. This delay will add together with the exposure time. If you setup a 120 seconds exposure in KStars it will only be 118 seconds on the photo. Set it to 122 seconds instead in KStars, filename will indicate 122 seconds if you use the exposure time in the file format. I who never use the Nikon camera has some problem to find the menus I looking for. Here I get great help how to maneuver around in the Nikon's menus:
I have these setting working very well now.
Only problem is that it complain about subframes: |
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