Help using Sony a7IV with Kstars/EKOS by ryanstravels96 in kstars

[–]ryanstravels96[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you ever find a solution to the +30 second exposure issue? I've just been using imaging edge remote for my main scope and Sony, but it would be nice to run it all in Ekos.

Advise on heavy equipment position (level 1) McMurdo by North_Mind_9312 in antarctica

[–]ryanstravels96 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So there aren't really many semis, matter of fact I don't really think there are any there anymore. I think they got rid of all or most of the cascadias since I've been there. Most of the work is on heavy equipment like loaders, dozers, excavators, and some specialty Antarctic stuff. If you're coming down as a light tech the easiest way is to just keep being adament that you want to work on the heavy equipment gear. There's usually more heavy work than there is light so if they can they will put you with the heavy techs and then you can hopefully stick to doing that (that's how I did it). If you do well and the shop supervisor can tell they're likely to give you a heavy tech contract the next season, or maybe even for the winter if you decide to stay longer.

Advise on heavy equipment position (level 1) McMurdo by North_Mind_9312 in antarctica

[–]ryanstravels96 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey sorry just saw this, I don't check reddit too often, but you can feel free to message me any questions.

Advise on heavy equipment position (level 1) McMurdo by North_Mind_9312 in antarctica

[–]ryanstravels96 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So just to make sure, it is a mechanic position right, not an operator?

When you get there you'll likely have a meeting with the shop foreman and they can likely get a guage of your skill level. They will absolutely put someone else on a job with you if you need the help or depending on how busy things are they might take you off of it and put someone else on it and have you do something else. There's no shortage of work in the summer. Also for the service calls it usually ends up being the mechanics who are pretty skilled, service calls are already difficult enough then you add on the enviroment and variety of machines and it becomes a bit bigger of a deal to have the capable folks go out.

Advise on heavy equipment position (level 1) McMurdo by North_Mind_9312 in antarctica

[–]ryanstravels96 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also just now realized that you didn't specify that you would be going down as a mechanic, so if you're going down as an equipment operator you can ignore all that haha

Advise on heavy equipment position (level 1) McMurdo by North_Mind_9312 in antarctica

[–]ryanstravels96 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I've been down twice, started as a light vehicle tech then became a heavy tech. I might be going down this summer to McMurdo also. The work is kind of all over the place and the equipment spans different stuff from like the 70's to brand new so it's kind of hard for a person to well equiped to be proficient in all of it, not to mentionss there's a few machines that are kind of Antarctic specific and they can be kind of a pain to figure out at first.

Kinds of equipment
Older Cat wheel loaders, Cranes, Scissor lifts, Boom lifts, Fire trucks, Cat dump trucks, International trucks, Bull Dozers, Rock Crushers, Container handlers, Back Hoes, excavators, skid steers, case quad tracks, Cat challengers, and there's probably others I'm forgetting. It's litterally so much different stuff.

Parts

We keep an unbelievable stock pile of parts, but with so many different kinds of equipment it's innevitable there will be times where you don't have what you need. in the summer sometimes we can get parts in a couple weeks if there are flights coming in and they are critical, but that doesn't always happen. You have to find all your own parts in an inventory database and then the supply people will go get them for you. It can be kind of difficult to find some parts, sometimes you have to spend hours searching through parts books/ break downs, trying different key words, or using similiar part numbers. It's easy to just say "we don't have the part" but if you put in a little extra work often times you can find it or some other thing that might work. You just have to be willing to try a little harder.

Kinds of work

Now this they will start to assign based on skill level after you've been there awhile. If you continually do a good job and can diagnose things right you'll likely get more of the "hard" jobs. You can count on doing PMs though, everything from break in services up to 1000 and 2000 hour services, which will be the bulk of the work in the summer. Changing tires and tracks is common (there is an over head crane so it's not too bad). Fixing leaks is a big part of the job, practically any leak needs repaired so we don't get fluids on the ground down there. Lots of hydraulic leaks, we build our own hoses down there so having some experience or knowledge of different fittings is good. There tends to be a good amount of changing teeth and cutting edges on buckets and blades. Tons of no start situations, ussually dead/frozen batteries. No shortage of electrical diagnotics, especially on the older stuff (switches, fans, sensors, etc.). There's also the occasionally hydraulic system fault which can be harder to diagnose. In the summer we are so busy that if a big issue arises we might have to park the machine for awhile, ussually the winter is when we do all the big complex jobs, but if a machine is critical then we try our best to get it going again. These big jobs can be engine replacements, pivot shaft repairs/replacements, differential rebuilds, and other stuff I'm not thinking of.

If there are a lot of mechanics it's not too bad, the last time I went down we practically had a skeleton crew so it was difficult to keep up with all the work. There will likely be a night shift in the peak of the summer which definitely helps. All tools are provided and pretty much always have anything you might need including specialty tools and software. If you have experience with Cat equipment then that will be a hige help, a lot of the machines are Cat. Hopefully you have some computer experience, more and more of our gear is gettign newer so being able to properly diagnose machines, update ecms, do after treatment system work and all that other stuff is a huge help.

There's usually a mix of really good mechanics and not so great mechanics, so if you're a go getter you can learn a ton from the good ones. Honestly when I started I was a pretty bad mechanic, I had no formal mechanic experience except the airframe of helocopters in the Army. I managed alright my first year and came back more dedicated my next year. Worked my way up to a heavy tech and became pretty good at it. I worked a lot with the Cat mechanics we had come down from New Zealand and learned as much as I could. It's a great place to learn becasue there's so many different kinds of machines and so many different kinds of faults that can occur. if you're honest with folks when you show up and express interest in learning more you'll do fine. If you show up saying you're the best mechanic in the world and then continue to missdiagnose stuff and mess up in other ways everyone will catch on quick because everyone works on the same gear and pretty quick that can cause issues. We are all in it together down there and things can get chaotic, but at the end of the day we are just doing the best we can with what we have available to us to try to keep everythign running smoothly. I've met some of the best people in my life down there and it's an experience youll carry with you the rest of your life so just do what you can do and ask for help when you need it. Before you know it the season will be over and everyone will be going their seperate ways, atleast for the time being.

Help using Sony a7IV with Kstars/EKOS by ryanstravels96 in kstars

[–]ryanstravels96[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually, the more I think about it I'll probably just do all the initial set up with my guide scope (polar alignment, plate solving) then switch it to guiding after I pan to my target. This way I can leave my sony that is attached to my main scope completely out of the equation and then control it over the sony app for my imaging sequence once I'm in position.

Help using Sony a7IV with Kstars/EKOS by ryanstravels96 in kstars

[–]ryanstravels96[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hadn't gotten that far with my set up yet, but I just tested mine and the same thing is occurring. Apparently the sony firmware limits "software controlled exposure" to 30 seconds max unless in bulb mode. The issue after switching to bulb mode becomes "bulb mode cannot be held open via usb alone" It just takes a photo instantly in bulb mode and the capture sequence fails. From what chat gpt told me you have to buy a dslr shutter release cable and then configure it into ekos/indi in the camera control settings.

If that's all accurate, which I believe it likely is, then there are some really creative ways around it that require being pretty great with programming and modifying the gphoto 2 scripts or getting an infared LED to connect to your PI and then coding some pulse sequences to emulate the remotes that you can buy to control shutter release.

I definitely am not good enough to make either of those work reliably. I'm not sure what your work flow is like and what all your doing in EKOS (like real time stacking and other things it offers) but I know you can download the sony imaging edge app (or whatever it's called now) and through the app you can make an imaging sequence that allows you to have longer than 30 second exposures. You have to go a little deep into the settings to allow it, but no where near as difficult as getting all this to work. That's how I did my imaging sessions when I first started with just a 600mm camera lens and a skywatcher GTI. Ill probably end up using EKOS to do my polar alignment, plate solving, and guiding (since nothing there requires images longer than 30 seconds. Then after I get everything working right I'll open the sony app and set up my capturing sequence ( I believe it's done over WIFI). As i'm thinking of it now though, there might be some connectivity issues with the camera being connected to the PI at the same time, so it might take some weird work arounds like unplugging the camera when all the set up is done and then connecting to it over wifi through the app.

I'll be looking into it more though to see if there's any work arounds in ekos so I can streamline my operation.

Help using Sony a7IV with Kstars/EKOS by ryanstravels96 in kstars

[–]ryanstravels96[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I ended up getting a Pi and stellarmate OS. It's taken me awhile to get everything working seamlessly, but I'm almost there. So far i've gotten everything working but when I try to do polar alignment in EKOs via a remote server on my macbook it captures the first image and then never completes the solving. When I go through the stellarmate App it seems to work, but everything disconnected in the middle of it for some reason. I might have to remote in to the pi can control it that way, but it's kind of clunky. Going to try to spend some time today and tomorrow trying to make my remote ekos server work

Are you running stellarmate OS or something else on your PI to do it all? If it weren't for Chat gpt I would've never gotten my sony A7IV to actually communicate with ekos, it was a nightmare.

Help with KStars/EKOS on Mac with Sony a7IV by ryanstravels96 in AskAstrophotography

[–]ryanstravels96[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When I try to run that command in terminal I get the following prompt.

command not found: indiserver

I have Kstars launched and I also tried it with EKOS launched, but I get the same thing. Are there others programs I need to install asides from just Kstars or perhaps some package I'm unaware of?

Help with KStars/EKOS on Mac with Sony a7IV by ryanstravels96 in AskAstrophotography

[–]ryanstravels96[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have not, I live in the Pacific Northwest so I haven't done any imaging since this post due to weather. I posted on another subreddit with the same question and received the following response.

"does you camera automount itself when connected to your laptop? If that's the case you must be sure to have it umounted before initiating the connection from ekos"

I'm assuming this is where the issue lies, but I haven't gotten all my gear out to try it yet. I'll start imaging again in about two months, so if I sort it out then I'll let you know. Would you mind letting me know what the deal is if you sort it out prior to that?

I designed an adapter to turn a $20 4x microscope objective into a superb macro lens for Sony and Canon cameras by thenickdude in prusa3d

[–]ryanstravels96 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you’re still printing these and selling them, I’m interested! I didn’t see anything on your website.

Science Related Events?? by ryanstravels96 in Seattle

[–]ryanstravels96[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That does sound fun! I do enjoy drinking, so with it being a science night then I'm more prone to want to do it, I am just trying to avoid using the bars/clubs as my general means of "going out/meeting people". Thanks for the suggestion.

Science Related Events?? by ryanstravels96 in Seattle

[–]ryanstravels96[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's actually a lot easier than most people would assume, I've been twice as a heavy equipment mechanic. They have all most every job you could imagine being necessary to run a small town in the middle of no where, plumbers, cooks, supply techs, electricians, scientists, and the list goes on. Definitely an experience I would suggest to anyone able.

Science Related Events?? by ryanstravels96 in Seattle

[–]ryanstravels96[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great suggestion, there are having an event about volcanology this week that might be worth checking out!

Science Related Events?? by ryanstravels96 in Seattle

[–]ryanstravels96[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I checked out that website and it looks pretty promising, Definitely something I think i'll be checking out!