NINA and Mease DSI Pro III Camera

[James Lukash]

Hello all. Does NINA support Meade DSI cameras? I’m interested in using NINA with my Meade DSI Pro III w/b. If doesn’t, maybe is there a solution for this camera and NINA?

[Dale Ghent]

Sure if it has an ASCOM driver that conforms properly to the ASCOM camera driver specification

[James Lukash]

As far as I know, working ASCOM driver for Meade DSI doesn’t exist. Although this camera works well in "PHD Guiding", maybe in "Nebulosity 3", without ASCCOM driver. Also it works under Linux in ccdciel via INDI. Because I need to use Meade DSI as main camera (not as guiding camera, I have QHY5 for this), I have a question for you. Could you, please, add Meade DSI III Pro support to NINA without ASCOM drivers?

[Dale Ghent]

Seems strange that Meade would have an Astrocamera and not provide an ASCOM driver with it. Adding native support in NINA would entail having access to Meade’s development software and someone with the interest and ability to create a native driver purchasing an example of the camera to code and test with.

[Stefan B]

If someone wants to get this a go, the N.I.N.A. architecture now offers plugins to implement device drivers.

[Export(typeof(IEquipmentProvider))]
public class FujiProvider: IEquipmentProvider<ICamera> {
  [ImportingConstructor]
  public FujiProvider([whichever importable interfaces you need]) {
    // your ctor impl.
  }

  public IList<ICamera> GetEquipment() {
    // your code to scan for fuji cameras and return a list of FujiCameras with your specific implementation
  }
}

Furthermore you can export a Datatemplate with the key <Fully Qualified Device Type TypeName>_CameraSettingsto add custom settings for your camera.

These interfaces and changes can be accessed with the nuget or a later one: https://www.nuget.org/packages/NINA.Plugin

[James Lukash]

Hello. Where can I get detail documentation how to create my own camera plugin (step by step)? I'm newbie in C#, wrote only sample code with H. Schild's book in VSCode :)