Dear Artemis Users,
I have been using Artemis and PHD2 guiding with my astrophotography setup for a couple of years. Although I can remove hot pixels by taking and subtracting dark frames and using various routines during processing, I have always wanted to use dithering. It turns out you can dither PHD2 with Artemis. The strategy used may work with other guiding software.
Before I describe how the dithering a accomplished, I want to make it clear that all the work was done by Bruce Waddington. Not only did he write the scripts that connect the two applications, he also discovered how Artemis could run the scripts. He walked me through the implementation process. I am an end user!
If you go to the PHD2 website you can download Bruce Waddington's folder of scripts. I suggest that this be put at the lowest level of the C: directory. All of the scripts need to be in the same folder. I created a folder on the C: drive called "phd_dither" and copied and pasted the files into the folder.
Bruce has written three scripts that work with PHD2. One sends dither commands to PHD2, one allows you to set up dithering parameters, and the final script is a timer that can trigger dithers at set intervals.
To set up the process, PHD2 must be running and guiding.
Next, open Artemis and open the sequencer. You'll notice there is a "System Command" box at the right hand side of each line. In this box, you place the command to initiate the dither script. In my case, I put "C:\phd_dither\Dither_script.vbs" in this box. You can save the sequencer data so that you only need to type the command line once. I added 30 seconds of delay time so that the tracking can settle down nicely after the dither.
Right now I have only tested this in my office desk. I'm confident it will work when I get outside.
Topic: Using Artemis to Dither PHD2 - It does work! (Read 6796 times)
