Hi John,

Here a modification that you may be able to do before version 4.0… if you agree. <g>
I just took my first flats with my new RCOS and noticed that CCDAP3 always tries to set the rotator position just before the dither for each flat. I believe the RCOS PIR takes about 30 seconds to rotate 180 degrees. This really eats up a lot of valuable time while taking dawn flats. Also, after the camera is rotated the software wastes 3 to 4 seconds for each flat trying to rotate a camera that is already in position.

So, I propose rotating the camera just once, at the beginning of the flat routine. Probably just before the first exposure attempt.

Here’s a snippet from a log file,

05:21:59 Current ADU: 6,148
05:21:59 Exposure adjusted to 22.7 sec.
05:22:01 Rotator moved to: 0.0
05:22:04 Dither: +0.0, +0.0,
05:22:04 Exposing...
05:23:07 Average ADU after bias subtraction: 20,180
05:23:08 C:\Documents and Settings\Bob\My Documents\CCDWare\CCDAutoPilot3\Images\080421_CalibrationFrames\0deg_Flat0_ngc4631_02350.fit
05:23:09 Exposure adjusted to 20.2 sec.
05:23:11 Rotator moved to: 0.0
05:23:15 Dither: +300.0, +0.0,
05:23:15 Exposing...
05:24:15 Average ADU after bias subtraction: 23,972
05:24:16 C:\Documents and Settings\Bob\My Documents\CCDWare\CCDAutoPilot3\Images\080421_CalibrationFrames\0deg_Flat0_ngc4631_02351.fit
05:24:18 Exposure adjusted to 15.2 sec.
05:24:19 Rotator moved to: 0.0
05:24:23 Dither: -300.0, +0.0,

Thanks and looking forward to release 4,
Bob Franke
http://bf-astro.com

Hi Bob,

It's already in there

Hi John,

I'm not clear on this...
now, next update or release 4?

bob

Version 4