october clusters

New moon, so had a go without filter. Oh, the good old days.
Recogniosable colour without jumping through hoops.

All taken using 36 x 180s frames: veTEC-571 on sv550 @ hcg100

ngc129 in cassiopeia

clusters ngc2158 with m35 in gemini

m45 in tautus

ngc884 with ngc869 in perseo

ngc663 and friends in cassiopeia

ekos shutdown

Timing race sometinms if a flip is scheduled during shutdown. The mount is not parked.

Big thanks to @Andy on the stellarmate discord for the workaround/fix...

Hi, thanks for the log and files, that made it easy to track down.

Workaround until the fix is released: in `/home/steve/Pictures/my_queue.kstarsqueue`, add this as the first entry of the park task's `"actions"` list, before the TELESCOPE_PARK step:

    {

"type": "EVALUATE",
"device": "EQMod Mount",
"property": "EQUATORIAL_EOD_COORD",
"element": "STATE",
"property_type": 4,
"condition": 1,
"target": "Busy",
"margin": 0,
"timeout": 180,
"retries": 0,
"failure_action": 1
},

It waits until the mount has stopped slewing (max 180 s), then parks. Without a flip it passes at once, and if it ever times out the park is still sent, so it's never worse than now. In the simulator the flip finished and the mount parked. Keep a backup of the file: re-creating the park task from the template removes the extra step. In the morning, the scheduler log should show "Pre-shutdown queue completed successfully".

double cluster resolution

 Can't get the cluster stars separate. Poor optics? Poor user processing more like. At least I tried...

open clusters ngc869 left with ngc884 in perseo
veTEC571 on sv550    36x3min @ hcg100

plasmashell crash after chrome update

A recent Chrome update interferes with the fontconfig. The font cache needs to be regenerated before plasmashell starts.

So, from here:

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user/plasma-plasmashell.service.d

cat > ~/.config/systemd/user/plasma-plasmashell.service.d/fontcache.conf << 'EOF' [Service]
 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/fc-cache -f
 EOF

systemctl --user daemon-reload
 sudo reboot

Did it work?

systemctl --user status plasma-plasmashell | head -10

You should see:

Process: ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/fc-cache -f (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Active: active (running)

setiastrosuitepro numpy

Setting the runtime virtual environment

 Kununtu 26.04 uses python3.14 and installs
numpy==2.5.0
which gives errors with the stacking suite alignment. The error messages suggests numpy 2.4, so...

 ...activate python3.14 venv at:
 ~/.local/share/SASpro/runtime/py314/ 

Then it's just

pip uninstall numpy
pip install numpy==2.4.4 --no-cache-dir

ctb1

 Never could get anywhere near this...

supernova remnant ctb1 médula in cassiopeia
veTEC571 on q150p    120x4min @ hcg100

two fails

 Well, not quite failures, but against all odds. 1. PHD2 rejecting dark frames. 2. EKOS guider rejecting dark frames. 3. Capture decided to change offset from 768 to 70 during the IC410 session.

Bueno... Strategies used
1. Forget PHD" and use instead...
2. ... the EKOS internal guider and post to the INDI Discord about the dark frames being rejected.
3. Stack without dark or flat frames.

Meanwhile 2 seems to have been fixed but better not speak too soon as it is tested only during daytime. No actual guiding yet, just at least the guide dark frames seem to be being used. O sea, there's no error when checking  the 'Dark' button in the EKOS guide module. Progress and big call out to Jasem on the Stellermate Discord for fixing the dark frame stuff.

nebulosity surrounding sadr in cygnus
veTEC571 on q150p    28x3min @ hcg10028 x 3min 

nebula IC410 tadpoles in auriga
veTEC571 on q150p    30x4min @ hcg100