Documentation for "Max Auto-Exposure" needs to mention "Consistent Delays Between Images"

[EricClaeys]

I am testing a few of the nighttime exposure settings, and one of them is a bit confusing, as it seems to be 2 things at once... Max Auto-Exposure: The maximum exposure in milliseconds when using Auto-Exposure. When Auto-Exposure is on, this value will be used as the delay between frames. Ignored if Auto-Exposure is off.

So if I am reading this correctly, does this mean if I have AutoExposure on, and this setting at 1000 ms, the AutoExposure will only be 1 second, and then the next pic will start 1 second later?
If I set it to 60000 the AutoExposure will be 1 minute and then there will be a delay of 1 minute between finishing that pic and taking the next one?

What if I want AutoExposure on and a delay of 1 second?

Perhaps I am just misunderstanding.

Originally posted by @MLethbridge76 in #4102 (reply in thread)

[EricClaeys]

A description of the problem:

The Max Auto-Exposure setting always determines the maximum exposure when Auto-Exposure is on.

It may, or may not, also be used to determine the delay between images.

The documentation currently says it will be used, but that's only true if the Consistent Delays Between Images setting is enabled. That setting determines if the delay between the start of one image and the start of another should always be the same (i.e., be "consistent"), regardless of how long an actual exposure is.

For example, if you want each image to start exactly 5 minutes after the prior one so the timestamp in the timelapse always increases by 5 minutes, then enable Consistent Delays Between Images. Then:

• If you are using Auto-Exposure and your Max Auto-Exposure is 60 seconds, you would set your delay to 4 minutes. If the actual exposure is only 2 seconds, Allsky will effectively wait for 58 seconds to match the Max Auto-Exposure, then delay for the 4 minutes you specified.
  • If Consistent Delays Between Images was NOT set, Allsky would start the 4-minute delay right after the 2-second exposure ended, so the time between the first image and the next one would be 4 minutes and 2 seconds. And if the 2nd image took 6 seconds, the time between it and the 3rd image would be 4 minutes and 6 seconds, i.e., the time between images would vary depending on how light it was outside.
• If you are using a Manual Exposure of 30 seconds, set your delay to 4 minutes 30 seconds for a total of 5 minutes.

When Allsky was first created the behavior was like when Consistent Delays Between Images is set. People who look for meteors want the shortest delay between images as possible to minimize missing a meteor so several of them asked for that capability. Rather than just change the behavior and potentially anger people who wanted a consistent delay, we created the Consistent Delays Between Images setting with the default being enabled so it would behave as before.

Solution

The documentation needs to mention the above in a concise way, probably without the historical context.