NFeeder Progress; A Good Imaging Night at Last?

I added more to the Nebulosity script generator/feeder program NFeeder:

• It now recognizes the time lapse setting, although I really don't understand the implementation of this in Nebulosity. (If you specify an exposure time of 15 seconds and a time lapse of 120 seconds, consecutive exposures start at 150s intervals. Time lapse is usually taken to be the time between consecutive frame starts. An alternative would be to treat it like a delay, setting the time between when a frame ends and the next starts. In the example this would give 135s between consecutive frame starts. I can't think of a rationale for 150s between frame starts given a time lapse setting of 120s.)
• The status indicator now tries to show you when you're within a time lapse delay, although the above problem messes it up.
• It can now parse a loaded script and set all the GUI widgets accordingly.
• It now provides the total amount of exposure time the script will require and includes it in the script as a comment. At present it doesn't distinguish between light, dark, and bias frames; they all count as exposure time. I may change this. Nor does it take into account the time lapse setting. I assume total time when time lapse imaging is not as important as the clock time span of the session.
• Auto-cooldown is now implemented. You specify the ambient temperature (to within the nearest 5 degree multiple), the set point, and the size of the temperature and time steps. You can also specify a final time interval to allow the camera to come to thermal equilibrium once it's been set to the set point temperature. The values of time delays must be found empirically. The following issue with the Delay command may impact how well this works--if it works at all.
• I eliminated the possibility of delays after filter changes because of strange behavior by Nebulosity. Invoking the Delay command from clipboard commands seems to cause Nebulosity to ignore the clipboard for quite a bit longer than the delay itself. It's possible I may have to apply a workaround in which NFeeder itself provides the delays.

It's now in its fourth incarnation so it has a version number of 0.4! If you choose to download and try it, be aware that the help information is not up to date and won't be until the development of the beta is almost done.

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Imaging tonight? Beautiful clear sky and a temperature around 30F now, but it will be falling through the upper teens and remain quite breezy when it gets dark.  Almost a first quarter moon, too. But fine for a 135mm Ha image of Sh 2-264, the big patch of nebulosity around Orion's head. It will be nice to get another winter object done.

Nebulosity Feeder continues development

My little project continues. A lot of changes have been made since last time, thanks to suggestions from a club member who tried it out.

For the most part, the changes are intended to make the program a little smarter about how it does things. The program keeps track of the last download image folder used and the last folder used to save or load a script. The default filter wheel information is now stored in the Windows Registry. (Non-default filter wheel sets can be saved as text files.)

Scripts now allow for external filter wheels. And thanks to a suggestion from the program tester the program now lets you know more about capture status: Which filter is being used, which frame is being captured, and about how much time the frame has remaining. Nebulosity does this, but only in small print on the status bar. Look just above the script:

The box showing the script now automatically scrolls to keep the current command in sight. The status even indicates when the latest image is being downloaded.

The Script Editor now looks like this:

A big change is that the duration and frames can be selected using drop-down lists (you can still enter other values manually.) 

Because it's possible to manually edit the created script (and thereby introduce errors), the script gets parsed and error-checked as it's sent to the Feeder screen.

Lastly, the Filterset Editor is now a part of the main program instead of being a pop-up dialog:

It's been simplified to emphasize working with the default set. On the left is something new: Preferences. There's only one setting at this point, but I've left room for more. A new object I call the Preference Manager is now running nicely and ready for more work. Preferences are stored in the Registry.

Speaking of the Registry, I've made sure that an uninstall of NFeeder removes everything it put into the Registry.

Still to come (if there's interest) are

• Options for using a larger set of Nebulosity script commands.
• Night vision ability, which I'm finding difficult because it will require using Qt's stylesheets.
• Better help files.

Want to try it out? The Download is HERE. 

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There was actually a nice night a little over a week ago and I managed to sneak in a couple of images using my 135mm Olympus lens. It captured three more images toward my AL Bright Nebula list!

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The latest images were post-processed with the aid of Imagenomic's NoiseWare Professional Edition standalone noise reduction software. It's almost too inexpensive to not purchase. There's also a Photoshop plugin available at a higher price.

A freeware script generator for Nebulosity

After visiting a friend I decided to look into other image processing software packages. Some are more affordable than others, at least from my viewpoint.  I found that Nebulosity has a large number of fans. It comes from the same house that gives us PHD (for free!) and I downloaded the trial version.

I like how it works for the most part, but its image acquisition ability seems to me to be only average. I should clarify--it's not so much its capabilities as the interface. If you use a DSLR or a one-shot-color CCD, or your nightly imaging sessions tend to involve only one filter, the interface is perfectly fine.

If you use a monochrome CCD and multiple filters during a session it gets a little more complicated. You have the choice to use the GUI for each filter or a built-in script editor to program your filter sequence.
The script editor is helpful and easy to use. Some understanding of the commands will take you a long way.

What the Nebulosity script system lacks is a way to temporarily interrupt running scripts to perform other tasks such as refocusing when a filter is changed. The focusing tools provided by Nebulosity can only be accessed when a script is not being run. A running script can be aborted but you can't resume executing the script from the command at which it was aborted.

I've done some programming in the past, so I thought I'd try to build something that could make refocusing possible from within a script. The solution I adopted is to make use of Nebulosity's ability to listen to the Windows clipboard for commands--it's not an elegant solution, but it seems to work. I may or may not use this depending on what else I find available for image capture, but it was fun throwing it together!

The program is called (at the moment) NFeeder.

Here are some screen captures:

Script Editor tab of main screen (click to enlarge to actual size) 

The Script Editor is fairly simple. The usual stuff is defined: destination folder, object name prefix, the sequence of filters (including exposure time, binning, and number of frames to capture). Dark and Bias frames are considered as types of filters and can be chosen in the same way.

Filter wheel contents are defined using an editor:

Filterset editor

Repetitions of the filter sequence can be specified. If you want to refocus at appropriate times, that can be indicated. (Dark and Bias frames don't move the filter wheel or pause for refocusing.)

The generator parses the inputs and constructs a Nebulosity script, shown at right. You can edit this by hand if you want. The script can be saved and previously saved scripts can be loaded.

If you're not refocusing, you can save the script and run it from within Nebulosity just as it is. If you want the ability to refocus when the filter changes you need to move on to the Feeder tab:

Feeder tab of the main screen

The Feeder tab shows the same script that was created/edited on the Script Editor tab. NFeeder works like this:

1. Start Nebulosity, connect to the camera and do whatever is best done within the Nebulosity interface: I prefer to set cooling and configure dithering from outside a script.
2. Launch a stub script that puts Nebulosity into listening mode. The stub script can be created from this tab
3. Start feeding a script to Nebulosity with the click of  a Start button. As it works NFeeder shows you which commands have been sent to Nebulosity. 
4. When NFeeder reaches a point where refocusing should be done, it passes a command to Nebulosity to show a prompt dialog. Clicking cancel in the prompt dialog aborts the stub script and you're free to access Nebulosity's focusing tools.
5. When you're done focusing, launch the stub again and click NFeeder's Resume button
6. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the session ends.
7. Click Nebulosity's Abort button to end the stub.

This may sound complicated, but it's not. I've tried the program with a Canon DSLR and SBIG ST-8300M + 8-cell filter wheel, and it worked correctly.

Want to give it a try? Here's the download. The application files and installer were scanned by Avast antivirus. Your comments would be appreciated. Still on my to-complete list are the night vision mode and better help information.

Please keep in mind that I made this for fun for a very small group of people (i.e., mainly myself) so it's probably lacking in features that may make it useful to you. It's free for your use because I enjoyed making it.

And yes, I'm aware of some other programs that serve similar purposes. Commercial products include Sequence Generator Pro ($99) which does far more than I need and Astro Photography Tool (APT) which is an amazing value (and one I'll probably purchase). Both are standalone programs worth considering.