Are there any known “gotchas” in this Beta? I mean, for example, if one were to try it, does it irreversibly convert existing sequences and profiles such that one can’t get back to the older [possibly more stable] version?
Thanks,
Karl
I’m all for testing, and I’m willing to accept that it might burn my sequence down to the ground… as long as it doesn’t also salt the Earth such that I cannot rebuild.
Karl,
It works really well. The only reason for caveats is so you guys don’t get too angry if you break it :). The big things such as weather station support are the only things that didn’t get much testing. Notifications, the new focus routines, and PHD2 support was tested robustly.
Enjoy 
If you alter your sequences and profiles with 2.4, you will not be able to use them again in 2.3.
Can you install 2.4 in addition to 2.3? That is, not auto remove 2.3?
I never found a way to have them both installed. I would just re-create my sequences if v2.4 gave me hiccups.
2.4 can take 2.3 sequences… they don’t go backwards though.
There are problems with this in terms of the SGF file association process. The operating system does not know which install to use and the installer freaks out a little. I have added these warning to the main beta release thread.
Thank you Mads, thank you Ken. Tossing caution to the wind, I’m going to go with 2.4, now. (It wouldn’t be that hard to recreate any sequence, or profile, or anything else, if I had to.) I look forward to using the new version; I expect to enjoy it.
Karl
I figure there’s two types of Astrophotographers out there: those who can not imagine life without SGP, and those who have, for whatever reason, not yet tried it.
+1 - same goes for PixInsight too, who are equally pushing the performance boundaries
A hidden gem in this release is the support of Good Night System. Google it - you’ll love it.
Well, in my case I will stick with 2.3 for now. We get very, very few clear nights until late spring in the Pacific NW so not only would I potentially waste a rare clear night on some bug, I would also probably not be able to contribute much to the debugging because of the same rarity of clear nights.
I look forward to using 2.4 in the spring when we get some decent weather.
Something to bear in mind is that if there’s a bug hiding that only affects your system it won’t be exposed until you try it. Developers are usually more set up to provide rapid updates when in the testing phase than when it’s released.
I was going to do an imaging session last night and happened to notice the beta was available so I switched to it.
I didn’t exercise much beyond autofocus, some image sequences, and plate solving and overall it worked well.
I think the autofocus worked better than before - and it appeared to do some sort of automatic range expansion I hadn’t seen before. It generated a good parabola the first time - and when I repeated it, it generated a perfectly centered parabola - which is ideal.
The only anomaly I noticed was in the filter wheel display - there is a round gray circle that has the name of the filter in it, just above the word, Set. The filter name there was sometimes blank and sometimes NA. I have a 9-filter Atik EFW2 and I think this all worked fine with 2.3. I tried re-entering the filter names and it didn’t help. Aside from that display problem I think it was switching filters properly but I can’t be absolutely sure.
I also tested the intrinsic SGP dithering functionality with MetaGuide and it appeared to work as intended - triggering a dither before each exposure. There are buttons to indicate high/med/low dither - and they have no use with MG so they should be grayed out.
In my case with OAG the guiding recovers quickly after a dither - so just triggering the dither seemed to work fine. I will see if I can make the delay timing work properly so that dither happens first - and then comes the inter-frame delay to let things settle.
Frank
True enough, still think it will be better for me to stick with 2.3 for now due to the weather. For example, looking at the long range forecast right now there is not a single day or night that even looks like a possibility. The reality is that my observatory is all but shut down from November-May. That is the bad news, the good news is that June-September has clear about 80% of the time.
I have just one more image to do to complete the book and then I’ll give it a go. I have a nose for anomalies. (My daughter says I just have a nose). I have the good night system and the AAG cloud watcher. If it supports Davis, I might even spring for their greedy priced USB port.
I am the world’s worst beta tester. I only need to glare at a system for it to behave.
A while ago we were at the checkout of our local supermarket and, just as they had finished putting everything through, the till froze. I leaned over, gave it a stern look, and told it “Now you behave - I know where your off switch is!”. And it did! It leapt into life and gave no more trouble
I love it! 
I will have to try that with our HVAC system, which has been a bit bizarre in it’s behavior lately!
ASCOM - A Stern Command Overcomes Malfunction