Exposure Times Confusion

[Davester9]

Hello - I recently purchased BYEOS CANON and used it last night for the first time. I have watched the tutorials and read the guide. I don't understand something it did last night. My capture program was 10 exposures at 50 seconds ISO 400, then, 10 exposures at 50 seconds ISO 800, then 10 exposures at 50 seconds ISO 1600. 30 total. It went through the program ok, but all the exposures stopped at 32 seconds each. I don't understand that. I used all factory defaults except that I did enable PHd dithering. Can you help me with this please? I should say that it's the first time I have ever used a DSLR and it's a Canon EOS Rebel T1i.

[admin]

How do you confirm each exposures stopped at 32 seconds?

[Davester9]

How do you confirm each exposures stopped at 32 seconds?

I watched it stop the exposure at 32 seconds, then it started to download.  Plus, each file indicates TV30.

[admin]

If the file indicates TV30 it means you chose a TV time value which are limited to 30 seconds max.  This is a camera limit.

 

Make sure the camera dial is set to M.

 

Make sure you choose BULB and then set the duration to 50 seconds in BackyardEOS.  That should work.

 

Keep us posted,

[Davester9]

The camera is set to M.  The exposure program is set to BULB.  I tested it out indoors just now and it went to the full 60 second exposure I set.  Thinking about it, last evening I did set the "Pause" control to 6 seconds to allow the sensor to cool.  Would that have affected it?  It seems to work now and I left that setting alone.

[admin]

Forget pause and all the bells and whistle for now.  Concentrate on the basics, master it, then add more stuff to your process.  Baby steps rules

 

Glad you got it to work.

[Davester9]

Begging your pardon, but, I paid for all the "bells and whistles".  I understand the fundamentals of this program.  I read the manual and spent 2 hours and 41 minutes watching the video.  Twice.  My question remains . . could having set the PAUSE to 6 seconds to allow the sensor to cool have caused an exposure time error?  When I retried the exposures indoors an hour ago, everything worked fine.  I set it for 60 seconds and the exposures went to 60 seconds.  I didn't change anything on the camera settings from last night.  The only difference today is that I'm not running PHd2 since I'm obviously not hooked up to the guide system.

[astroman133]

Your T1i should have no issue taking BULB exposures longer than 30 seconds with only a single USB cable. Some older cameras need a second cable to control the shutter for bulb exposures, but not the T1i. I would double check your exposure plan to make sure that the Shutter is set to BULB and that the Duration is set to 50.

 

PHD will in no way interfere with the operation of the camera, especially if you are not dithering. In that case, BYE tells PHD to dither after the exposure is complete and does not start the next exposure until dithering has finished and guiding has settled. There is really no way that PHD can cause BYE to terminate an exposure prematurely.

 

Next, a 6-second pause between exposures is not nearly enough to allow for significant cooling of the camera. You are wanting to cool the sensor, but in order to do that the entire camera must cool down. That takes several minutes of the camera sitting there idle and the LCD display turned off.

 

Finally, just because the software has this bell or that whistle does not mean that they are appropriate for every type of imaging. For example, a pause could certainly be appropriate when shooting a time lapse sequence, but perhaps is not of any value when you are shooting a sequence of ten minute long deep sky images.

 

I would also say that there are times when you want the camera to heat up to its equilibrium temperature and shoot your images with minimal delay in between. That way the all of the images will be at the same temperature and when used with dark frames at that same temperature will give you a better result after calibration.

 

Guylain was suggesting that you keep your goals simple while you are actually gaining hands-on knowledge of the software and make your imaging plan more complex as you get more experience. If you think that the 6-second pause is causing your issue, then simply set the pause to 0 and run the capture plan again.

 

Finally, when you said that your exposures were stopped at 32 seconds, did you get that from looking at your watch, or did you get the actual exposure from the EXIF data that is inside each image. BYE allows you to examine the EXIF data. It is in the manual. The camera puts the ExposureTime parameter into the data and BYE adds BackyardCaptureDuration, if it is configured to do so and the image is stored on the PC by BYE. Both of those values should be close, but will likely not be exact because one value is timed by the PC and the other is timed in the camera. I am sure that Guylain asked that because a 30 second limit to the exposure duration is important. To get exposures longer than 30 seconds, the shutter must be timed by the PC and BYE.

 

Since you have since reported that the symptoms have gone away I would suggest that something has definitely changed. It may be that none of the cameras parameters have changed, but there are parameters that BYE sends to the camera that are not saved by BYE, so you could have set them up differently to day than you did last night.

 

Keep the group updated with your progress.

 

Good Luck!

[Davester9]

As I previously stated . . Twice . . the capture plan was set to BULB. The exposure setting was 50. My watch had nothing to do with it. The Tv on all of the files was 32. I watched the program run. At 32 seconds, the camera shutter closed, the "download" statement appeared on the capture minitoring screen, however, the timer then continued to 50 seconds. Every one of the files indicated that a 32 second exposure had been taken. I don't know how to be more clear. I'm not looking for finger-pointing excersize here. I paid for this program and am asking the person who sold it to me to assist me. I'm not interested in third-party opinions.

[astroman133]

I would also say that over the past 5 years I have helped literally hundreds of new users of BYE and BYN to learn the software on these community support forums. However, i am only an experienced user and a volunteer and if you don't want from myself or other members of the community, then so be it.

 

Good luck. I am sure that Guylain will provide superior customer service.

[admin]

Begging your pardon, but, I paid for all the "bells and whistles".  I understand the fundamentals of this program.  I read the manual and spent 2 hours and 41 minutes watching the video.  Twice.  My question remains . . could having set the PAUSE to 6 seconds to allow the sensor to cool have caused an exposure time error?  When I retried the exposures indoors an hour ago, everything worked fine.  I set it for 60 seconds and the exposures went to 60 seconds.  I didn't change anything on the camera settings from last night.  The only difference today is that I'm not running PHd2 since I'm obviously not hooked up to the guide system.

 

 

Setting the pause would not have changed anything that would have caused the behavior your have described.  

 

EDIT.  Send me the log files and I'll take a look.

 

Regards,

[admin]

The customer has decided to dispute the charge claiming unsatisfactory support.  I'm locking this thread as a result.