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.

[Nick Quinn]

Hello Grant,

You might want to look at Solar Eclipse Workbench: https://github.com/AstroWimSara/SolarEclipseWorkbench I haven’t used it myself but the underlying control software is gPhoto2 which I have used to good effect via a PERL script running on a Raspberry Pi. I can also fire my camera (Canon 70D) via an interface from the Pi to the remote shutter release socket.

[Grant Privett]

Yes, I have one of them. But I rather fancied going from 1/1000th sec up to 1/10th sec rather than all the pics at the same exposure. But take your point. Simplicity is nice.

EDIT: Hell. I didn’t spot it does exposure too! That looks more interesting certainly. I will see if it does sequences. Thanks for the heads up. Assumed it just triggered the camera with the current exposure setting.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks ago by Grant Privett. Reason: Edited cos I'm stupid
• This reply was modified 3 weeks ago by Grant Privett.

[Grant Privett]

Thats very interesting. Had never heard of it. Thank you!

Looks a fairly simple syntax doing exactly what I need.

Shame it doesn’t run under Windows but I have WSL or I could just build a Linux Mint laptop and install python, Thunderbird, LibreOffice and Firefox. Thats all I would need to do what I do most the time and keep contact with home.

Am unclear from the github site. Is this running via a normal USB cable – like accessing the DCIM folder to download images?

1min45sec doesn’t allow time to faff with exposure – hence my concern!

[Nick James]

You might find Magic Lantern (https://www.magiclantern.fm/) useful. It allows you to script things in the camera.

[Grant Privett]

Evening Nick,

I vaguely recall thats been around a while. I considered it when I used a Canon 1100D but was worried it might brick it.

But, as it happens, I now use an M5 and apparently its not yet compatible.

So its currently looking like a Linux laptop needs building and I need to start some testing. 🙂

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