adyj1

4 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

Me to I have a 150pds and mpcc ditched the std adapter for one of these from https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/flo-compression-ring-adapter-for-skywatcher-newtonians-m54.html yet to try with mpcc but works fine for visual holds ep's firmly I have clicklock on my c5 rock solid stuff..

That adapter looks the same height as the original skywatcher one, so I don't expect you'll have problems - the Baader clicklock is a giant in comparison ?

That FLO version is a reasonable (and cheaper!) alternative, but without the self-centering and vice-like grip of the clicklock.

4 hours ago, Stu said:

 

I'm going to set the bar high for today with my entry, don't be disheartened by it and please do still post your entries

Stu, I don't want to appear picky, and I certainly don't want to put the kibosh on my smartphone snap of the pillars of creation winning a future StuPOD award, but I suspect you've used a  "tracking or decent imaging mount" (from post 1) on that last masterpiece...

#justsaying

?

Ady

5 hours ago, Davey-T said:

That's more like it Helen, I had to clean the laptop screen so I could tell the clouds from the muck on the screen 

Dave

That's clouds? Dammit I just ordered a barrel of screen cleaner... ? 

Helen, I don't want to be picky and certainly wouldn't want to try to influence the esteemed and inscrutable judging panel, but how much of Orion do you need to see for it not just to be a poorly-framed  picture of the moon ? ? ? 

Ok, with Mike's assistance I didn't drop my primary mirror... ? 

Which means to say the bolts on the 150PDS aren't *quite* long enough to achieve focus with my Canon 200d with the Baader click lock fitted.  We stopped when one of the three retaining screws had run out of thread ?.

When I add the Skywatcher 0.9x flattener/Cc, focus got slightly worse, so I do need to add a reasonable increase in screw length. I am currently sourcing screws that are 10mm longer than the current standard ones, and will post back. 

A shame, as I really like how securely the click lock centres and holds the dslr. I'm going to make this work! 

Surely last Tuesday's ? 

Just found this thread and thought I'd post a holiday shot. 20s exposure with Oneplus 3t phone resting on a bin in a camping site near Salcombe. Revel in the cygnus region ? ;

Unfortunately it will take me a few days before I can try this on the 150PDS. I'll post when I get the chance... 

Ady

Darks now completed successfully in PHD. 

Soooooo.....

It appears you can't truly repent until you've confessed... In other words until I'd publicly told all you lot what I couldn't do, I wasn't going to be able to fix it.

The good news is that now I have discovered the Altair dshow driver was being used (thank you SharpCap) I've been able to get the camera recognised in PHD using the Altair. It tried to go through the generation of darks (and even told me to put the lens cover on!). The less good news is that the darks didn't complete (more than 16 seconds and not completed a 1s exposure), so I may yet need to get the Toupcam driver working, but at least it is progress!.

I will attempt to make better sense of this, and perhaps write an Idiot's guide - I'm well qualified ;-)

Thanks

Ady

More information:

I've installed SharpCap and whilst I can see some very odd behaviour, have managed to see that the camera works!

When I open the 'Cameras' menu, I can see four sections;

      'Altair Cameras' under which the 'GPCAMAR0130C' is listed,

      'DirectShow Cameras via SharpCap Pipeline' under which 'Integrated Webcam' and 'Toupcam' are listed, and

      'ASCOM Cameras' under which 'Camera V2 Simulator' and 'ASCOM Toupcam Driver' are listed

Selecting either of the Toupcam drivers listed results in errors, however the Altair GPCAMAR0130C works (shows a blurred unfocused screen that reacts to light).

Which has reminded me I tried installing ALTAIR drivers during my many attempts to get the Toupcam working as I understood it was compatible, but I thought I'd uninstalled all of them...

Checking the Windows folder I do find the 'altaircam.sys' driver installed, so I'll do a bit more investigation...

Ady

Grierson,

Yes, the ASCOM Toupcam driver is second in the list in PHD when I start the New Profile Wizard. When I click 'detect' for it to get the un-binned pixel size, it errors with an error message which includes "could not connect to camera". 

This seems to be the same thing I see in ASCOM Diagnostics; I select Device Type 'Camera', click on 'Choose' and it gives me a dialog box where I can select 'ASCOM ToupCam driver' from a list of 3 (the other 2 seem to be defaults of 'Camera V2 Simulator' and 'Simulator'), so this makes me think the ASCOM driver software is being picked up, but when I click on the 'properties' button after selecting the Toupcam Driver,  a setup dialog appears with a 'camera' dropdown which has one blank entry (so nothing to choose).

You're right about the website being poor, but it is still better than the install instructions that came with the camera - none. Just a ToupSky software quick-guide printed on four A4 sheets...  I was hoping to create a beginners guide after I got it working, but that seems to be a way off yet! 

I will try uninstalling ASCOM and reinstalling.

Thanks

Ady

32 minutes ago, Zakalwe said:

If it's not being recognised in Device Manager then it's possible that the camera is a dud.

Zakalwe, thanks for the quick reply.

The camera is visible, by correct name, in Device Manager (once I worked out how to manually update the driver). 

You've reminded me of one other useful info I should have included - the camera has been tested on a friend's Laptop running Windows 8.1 with all the guiding software installed. Got the normal blurred image from it (indoors and not attached to a scope).

Thanks

Ady

PS - your avatar freaks me out ;-)

Hi,

I'm making a tentative foray into guided AP, and have got a ToupTek GCMOS01200KPB Colour guide cam from FLO (to use on an ST80 I picked up from the forums).

I can't get PHD2 to recognise the camera, in fact I can't even get the ToupTek software to see the camera. I wonder whether anyone else with experience of this camera, or Windows 10 might be able to help?

I managed to overcome the initial problem of Windows recognising it as a 'USB2.0 Camera' even thought I had 'installed' the DirectShow driver that came with the camera. It seems that running the driver installation program didn't actually install the driver, it just put the necessary files on my hard disk. I then had to do the windows thing of selecting 'update driver', 'have disk', etc. to point at the ToupCam.inf file that had been copied onto my laptop. After this, when I plug in the camera it correctly recognises it in Device Manager correctly as a GCMOS01200KPB camera (now under 'Imaging Devices' in device manager rather than 'Cameras').  The red LED on the camera flashes when it is connected.

This took me about a week to work out, so I was feeling quite pleased with myself - until I tried running any camera software. Running the ToupSky software showed 'no device' under cameras. I installed the ASCOM drivers, and when I run the ASCOM diagnostics it appears to see the driver but cannot connect to the camera.

I'm stumped. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Many thanks

Ady