Autofocus - bad HFR value

Hi.

Since last few days I and my friend have some issiue with autofocus.
If we have in our FOV some bright star the autosocus is crazy.
I checked, help only change FOV without bright star. Then everything is ok.
Even decrease “Crop auto focus frames” not help.
Of course this message stops autofocus.

With old version SGP I don’t had any problems.

first setup QHY695A+APO100Q
second setup QHY8L+ED80

SGP sent message


We’ll need logs to investigate.

Thank you,
Jared

Please upload full logs. See Jared’s link above for directions.

problem is in this line [04/08/20 20:56:15.263]

full log for first screen

Hoi looks like my issue i had this night

I will check my log also

This is my log

04/11/20 00:25:29.400][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Extracting RAW data…
[04/11/20 00:25:29.400][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] RAW arg data: -D -T -4 -W -v -t 0 “C:\Users\ngc98\AppData\Local\SequenceGenerator\Temp\cannonRaw-0.tmp”
[04/11/20 00:25:29.409][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 86016
[04/11/20 00:25:29.913][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 8364032
[04/11/20 00:25:30.419][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 14450688
[04/11/20 00:25:30.922][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 18341888
[04/11/20 00:25:31.426][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 23027712
[04/11/20 00:25:31.930][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 24166400
[04/11/20 00:25:32.435][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 24166400
[04/11/20 00:25:32.940][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 24166400
[04/11/20 00:25:33.444][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 27885568
[04/11/20 00:25:33.964][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 85008384
[04/11/20 00:25:34.467][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 85016576
[04/11/20 00:25:34.968][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] Done extracting RAW data, checking for success…
[04/11/20 00:25:34.968][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] RAW data extraction is good…
[04/11/20 00:25:34.968][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] Extracting bitmap data from RAW (tiff)…
[04/11/20 00:25:35.109][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] Creating bitmap (3908,2602)…
[04/11/20 00:25:35.139][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] Locking bitmap for write
[04/11/20 00:25:35.139][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] RAW bith depth: 16
[04/11/20 00:25:35.308][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Internal Interface: Set Preview…
[04/11/20 00:25:35.308][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Display image preview using asynch task…
[04/11/20 00:25:36.500][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] → Find stars (normal)
[04/11/20 00:25:36.751][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] AF frame was too large… downsample = 0.5…
[04/11/20 00:25:41.071][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Star detection using min star size of 3px…
[04/11/20 00:25:41.071][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Star detection using max star size of 60px…
[04/11/20 00:25:41.421][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Find stars took: 4921 ms…
[04/11/20 00:25:41.840][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Auto focus HFR calculated at: 0.00
[04/11/20 00:25:42.850][WARN][Camera Thread][AF;] HFR value from auto focuser is 0!, trying again…
[04/11/20 00:25:42.850][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Taking auto focus frame(s)…
[04/11/20 00:25:42.911][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Canon camera: Capturing auto focus frame…
[04/11/20 00:25:42.911][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Canon: AF Binning: 1600…
[04/11/20 00:25:42.911][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Canon: AF Exposure length: 10 seconds…
[04/11/20 00:25:42.911][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Canon: AF Exposure DL speed: NORMAL
[04/11/20 00:25:42.983][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Canon: Setting ISO to: 1600
[04/11/20 00:25:42.983][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Canon: ISO look val: 104
[04/11/20 00:25:43.066][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Canon: Exposing for 10 seconds…
[04/11/20 00:25:43.176][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Canon: PropertyEventHandler: event 101, property 40A, parameter 0,
[04/11/20 00:25:43.176][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Canon: PropertyEventHandler: event 101, property B, parameter 0,
[04/11/20 00:25:43.176][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Canon: PropertyEventHandler: event 101, property 40A, parameter 0,
[04/11/20 00:25:43.176][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Canon: PropertyEventHandler: event 101, property B, parameter 0,
[04/11/20 00:25:43.176][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Canon: PropertyEventHandler: event 101, property 40A, parameter 0,
[04/11/20 00:25:43.176][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Canon: PropertyEventHandler: event 101, property 40A, parameter 0,
[04/11/20 00:25:54.410][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Canon: PropertyEventHandler: event 101, property 40A, parameter 0,
[04/11/20 00:25:54.413][DEBUG][Canon Download Thread][AF;] Canon: Directory Item Requested Transfer
[04/11/20 00:25:54.413][DEBUG][Canon Download Thread][AF;] – Event delay: 0 ms
[04/11/20 00:25:57.214][DEBUG][Canon Download Thread][AF;] --------------> getCapturedItem time: 2800 ms
[04/11/20 00:25:57.700][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] Created full file name (file does not exist): C:\Users\ngc98\AppData\Local\SequenceGenerator\Temp\metric.fit
[04/11/20 00:25:57.700][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Extracting RAW data…
[04/11/20 00:25:57.700][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] RAW arg data: -D -T -4 -W -v -t 0 “C:\Users\ngc98\AppData\Local\SequenceGenerator\Temp\cannonRaw-0.tmp”
[04/11/20 00:25:57.709][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 86016
[04/11/20 00:25:58.213][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 5943296
[04/11/20 00:25:58.717][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 10178560
[04/11/20 00:25:59.221][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 14786560
[04/11/20 00:25:59.726][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 19267584
[04/11/20 00:26:00.229][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 23199744
[04/11/20 00:26:00.734][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 24166400
[04/11/20 00:26:01.238][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 24166400
[04/11/20 00:26:01.742][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 24166400
[04/11/20 00:26:02.246][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 24166400
[04/11/20 00:26:02.750][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 24166400
[04/11/20 00:26:03.260][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 85008384
[04/11/20 00:26:03.763][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 85016576
[04/11/20 00:26:04.267][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] DCRAW Physical Memory Usage: 3674112
[04/11/20 00:26:04.768][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] Done extracting RAW data, checking for success…
[04/11/20 00:26:04.768][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] RAW data extraction is good…
[04/11/20 00:26:04.768][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] Extracting bitmap data from RAW (tiff)…
[04/11/20 00:26:04.903][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] Creating bitmap (3908,2602)…
[04/11/20 00:26:04.933][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] Locking bitmap for write
[04/11/20 00:26:04.933][TRACE][Camera Thread][AF;] RAW bith depth: 16
[04/11/20 00:26:05.089][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Internal Interface: Set Preview…
[04/11/20 00:26:05.089][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Display image preview using asynch task…
[04/11/20 00:26:06.053][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] → Find stars (normal)
[04/11/20 00:26:06.292][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] AF frame was too large… downsample = 0.5…
[04/11/20 00:26:10.268][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Star detection using min star size of 3px…
[04/11/20 00:26:10.268][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Star detection using max star size of 60px…
[04/11/20 00:26:10.354][DEBUG][Main Thread][AF;] Find stars took: 4301 ms…
[04/11/20 00:26:11.503][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Auto focus HFR calculated at: 0.00
[04/11/20 00:26:12.506][WARN][Camera Thread][AF;] HFR value from auto focuser is 0!, trying again…
[04/11/20 00:26:12.723][ERROR][Camera Thread][AF;] Auto focus received a bad HFR value 2 times in a row! Something may be wrong! : Auto focus received a bad HFR value 2 times in a row! Something may be wrong!
at qr.a(AutoFocusData A_0, sz& A_1, sz A_2)
[04/11/20 00:26:12.723][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] MoveFocuserAbs: Start, move to 14689…
[04/11/20 00:26:12.723][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] ASCOM Focuser: MoveSync - start…
[04/11/20 00:26:12.723][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Focuser moving to 14689
[04/11/20 00:26:12.765][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Focuser move call complete
[04/11/20 00:26:12.766][DEBUG][Move Monitor Thread][AF;] ASCOM Focuser: Move monitor thread is started…
[04/11/20 00:26:15.806][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] ASCOM Focuser: MoveSync - Focuser reports it is done moving, continuing…
[04/11/20 00:26:15.826][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] MoveFocuserAbs: End, move complete, at 14689…
[04/11/20 00:26:15.826][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Auto focus (finally): closing dialog…
[04/11/20 00:26:16.785][DEBUG][Move Monitor Thread][AF;] ASCOM Focuser: Move monitor thread → movement complete
[04/11/20 00:26:29.522][DEBUG][Camera Thread][AF;] Auto focus complete…
[04/11/20 00:26:29.541][DEBUG][Camera Thread][NONE] SGM_FOCUSER_AUTO_FOCUS complete…
[04/11/20 00:26:29.541][DEBUG][Camera Thread][NONE] Camera thread is IDLE…
[04/11/20 00:26:53.163][DEBUG][Camera Thread][NONE] SGM_FRAME_AND_FOCUS message received…
[04/11/20 00:26:53.172][DEBUG][Camera Thread][NONE] EOS camera: frame and focus…
[04/11/20 00:26:53.257][DEBUG][Camera Thread][NONE] Canon: Setting ISO to: 1600
[04/11/20 00:26:53.257][DEBUG][Camera Thread][NONE] Canon: ISO look val: 104
[04/11/20 00:26:53.347][DEBUG][Camera Thread][NONE] Canon: Exposing for 8 seconds…

Chris

All, From me its solved, this night i tried again to get the whale in focus, with success. The only thing i can get that it has to do that is was some high clouds other wish i have no clue.

Anyone can solve my problem???

I look at the log file lines you indicated:

[04/08/20 20:56:12.938][DEBUG][Main Thread][SQ;AF;] Star detection using min star size of 3px…
[04/08/20 20:56:12.938][DEBUG][Main Thread][SQ;AF;] Star detection using max star size of 60px…
[04/08/20 20:56:13.531][DEBUG][Main Thread][SQ;AF;] Find stars took: 1596 ms…
[04/08/20 20:56:13.531][DEBUG][Main Thread][SQ;AF;] Star list contains 1 stars…
[04/08/20 20:56:13.531][DEBUG][Main Thread][SQ;AF;] Calculating HFR with sample size: 3
[04/08/20 20:56:14.261][DEBUG][Camera Thread][SQ;AF;] Auto focus HFR calculated at: 3.44
[04/08/20 20:56:15.263][ERROR][Camera Thread][SQ;AF;] Auto focus received a bad HFR value 2 times in a row! Something may be wrong! :

The AF routine could only detect 1 star in the field! And a few seconds before it actually detected 0 stars. This caused two consecutive bad HFR values, hence the abort.

I also noticed that you had two good AF runs before:

AF Run	     Date	    Time	   Pos	   HFR	   Temp	    Filter	   Q (min Q)	              Misc	Target
 1	 04/08/20	20:31:33	 12752	  1.28	  11.77	        Ha	   99% (90%)	        Successful	
 2	 04/08/20	20:35:04	 12723	   0.9	  11.21	        Ha	   97% (90%)	        Successful	

image

For AF Run 1 you also got only 1 star for the last point in that curve, but it didn’t cause an error. But the low number of detected stars appears to be the problem when you are at the edges of the AF Run.

I don’t really know a good fix here, except to reduce the AF range by lowering the step a bit, but it looks pretty well chosen already. Maybe @Ken or @Jared could comment if the max star size parameter (60 px) could be tweaked here ?

Mikael

Looks like you’re using 12 second exposures and focusing with a HA filter. My guess is this is much too low. When I’ve focused through my narrowband filters I typically need about a minute per exposure to get adequate data for auto focus. Because of this we highly recommend setting up focus offsets and using the “Adjust focus per filter” option. From there you can switch to your lum, focus and then go back to your narrowband filter while keeping focus.

Thank you,
Jared

1 Like

Good point Jared, somehow I completely missed that a Ha filter was used here!

Still, I think something additional happend here. In AF Run 1 the best focus frame had 28 stars, then for the two left-most points there were only 4 and 1 stars detected, that’s a huge ratio. In AF Run 2 however star counts were much higher (18 to 91).

I think @calberts point above is good, the very low star count in some frames could be due to a low image contrast due to passing high clouds, combined with a too short integration time for a narrowband filter.

ok, problem solved.
I decrease time exp to 8s, and autofocus run without problems.