Canon ASCOM drivers

[Grant Privett]

I’m making plans for observing the total solar eclipse this year. Its short at 1min45sec, so I have decided to use a computer to control the camera during totality to avoid me making mistakes (last time it was so dark I couldn’t see the writing on the camera) and allow me to gawp.

So, I plan to use ASCOM and ASCOM/Alpaca/Alpyca to control the camera(s). A few years ago I used the native driver that Canon supply and found it had some internal restriction whereby it would not send a trigger to my Canon 1100D more than once every 5 seconds – which would have meant a lot of down time. So I’ve been put off them.

I wondered if anyone was aware of a driver not supplied by Canon – but presumably using their API/SDK – that managed to overcome the problem a bit. I spotted that the camera can do much higher rates for a while – I assume until the internal memory buffer fills – and wondered if I should use brief bursts of that. If taking single frames I can certainly reduce downtime by turning off image preview as that imposes an additional 2sec per frame overhead – if I’m not already in focus by totality then I’ve other problems anyway.

Any thoughts very welcome

[Mr Ian David Sharp]

Hi Grant,

I haven’t used ASCOM drivers for Canon cameras myself, but what I have used are these remote control devices:

Remote Control Device

They are very convenient and you don’t need a PC at all. Easy to use and learn.

Just a thought.

Ian.

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