i am facing a problem with my Pentax K-5 connected to the stellarmate gadget. Every exposure in EKOS (either in the capture, alignment, or focus module) results in a shot with 2s+selected exposure time. So if i want to make an 1s exposure the result is an 2s+1s = 3s exposure. This is quite annoying and makes it impossible to create bias or flat frames and to be honest anything else.
Please see the attached logfile from an 1s and 0.2s exposure
Rendering Error in layout Message/Item: array_keys(): Argument #1 ($array) must be of type array, null given. Please enable debug mode for more information.
The 2 seconds for my pentax dslr are added to any exposure time in EKOS. Of course it is possible to capture shorter exposure times manually (DSLR not connected to INDI/Ekos). From EKOS it´s impossible.
The latest drivers are installed on the Stellarmate gadget.
I don´t have another camera (guide cam etc.), so i cannot say if this problem is only related to my pentax dslr.
So, how did you dealt with it. The big problem for me is not taking bias and flat frames from the camera itself. The problem is, that light/darkframe dng files from EKOS and the flat/bias dngs from pentax are incompatible in DSS or sequator.
I raised the issue here assuming it might be identified as a gphoto2 problem but didn’t hear back. I lived without flats because I was getting pretty flat images until I got astropixelprocessor which gives better processing, so now I need flats.
I developed this method (flash photography) and seems to work:
If you set exposure for the min you get about 1/32 sec -if I recall. Fast enough to use a flash to overpower stray light.
I should point out though that the t-shirt method , whether flash or not , seems to produce slight overcorrecting in the flats.
So really we need to control the exposure better.
Having said that, if you have a good snr vs iso curve on your camera - like the k-5 - you are better to shoot low iso in which case flat exposure is easier to control.