stargamed

Thanks much.

Two cameras came with my Orion telescope and mount - an Orion Guide scope and an All-in-One Astrophotography. 

I haven't figured out guiding at all yet. But the thought occurred to me that if I have two cameras that two different

devices are going to be plugged into one laptop. Is that typically how it would work - having a photo camera and a 

guide camera going to the same laptop? 

A step forward and back on firecapture. I found that I'd loaded an old version of it from a mirror site. The new code works except that it seems to want to use the ASCOM drivers. An ASCOM dialog pops up and asks me to choose a camera and I select CMOS All-In-One. But then that fails when it notes that the driver is 32 bit. So I may still be stuck on that. 

As for Firecapture - it's still complaining about Java not being installed although I just installed Java v8 and rebooted the Win 10 laptop. 

@ShimrodI now have a spacer tube and two barlows - a 3x and a 5x. I'll see if either of those help. It seems like going that direction is the opposite of what @Cosmic Geoff is suggesting - to bring the camera as close as possible to the objective. Or does somehow adding the spacer give the camera the appearance of being closer to the objective via the barlow magnification? I'll try the barlow and the make it as close to the secondary as possible too. Open to all options!

@Brazac My only progress is that I have been able to put the camera into my refractor scope and get a close up image of a leaf from about 100 yards away with color too. So in the day time it can pick up lighter/darker, colors and image details if through a telescope. But in the dark I am just getting a funky bunch of dots that look like they're burned into the receptor or something. The more gain or the longer the exposure the more those "burned in" dots are visible. 
What exposure and gain are you using when you can get an image of a planet or DSO?

@Cosmic Geoff That's interesting about the camera needing to be nearest the objective lens. I could try dropping in the camera as far as possible and cranking in the focus such that it's as close to the secondary mirror as possible. Worth a shot. Perhaps it is a focus issue. Although it seems like I've tried every permutation of focus, exposure, gain available. 

On 29/11/2020 at 02:55, Shimrod said:

This sounds like you are not able to get the telescope into focus with the camera - these are the same symptoms I experienced when I bought my first astro camera. The camera came with the appropriate spacers to give 55mm of backfocus when used with a reducer, but with no reducer I had to buy additional extension tubes (another 50mm) to insert between the camera and the focuser. If you have a barlow, try using that as well - you might get a bit closer to focus which would at least confirm it is not a software/driver issue.

 

Thanks. The telescope came with an extra tube. Maybe that's it. I have a barlow set on order. I wasn't sure which to get so I ordered a 2x 3x and 5x.

As per an earlier post - I'm having little luck getting my Orion StarShoot All-in-One Astrophotography Camera to
work. I tried another laptop reloading the camera drivers, then ascom drivers and finally ascom platform 
and then Orion AstroCap software - paying particular attention to the order. But still no luck other than scan
lines to that program and no feed at all to SharpCap. 

The thought dawned on me - might I be as well off just using my iPhone and a brace to have it look through
the eyepiece of  the telescope rather than a dedicated CMOS device in the tube? Currently I have an iPhone
6Plus. But I could upgrade it it I thought it would work as a good substitute for the StarShoot dedicated cam.
Thoughts? Setup Orion 8" refractor, Sirius EQ G mount 25mm and 7.5mm plossl eyepieces. 

If dedicated device is really the way to go - do they now speak directly to the iPhone for capture as opposed
to outputting to a laptop? It's a little clunky bringing the laptop into the field. 

11 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Could try Firecapture and the other one IcCap

I tried Firecapture. But when I start it it says I need to load Java. I installed the latest
version of Java and rebooted. Firecapture still gives the error that Java isn't loaded.
ICap appears to need USB3. I don't think I have that on this system. But TY.

I recently got an Orion StarShoot Astrophotography Camera and have had difficulty getting it
to work right. The software that comes with it AstroCap seems horrible. The start/stop mechanisms
are vague, the images won't appear. The best I've been able to do is see scan lines and some
color light or dark variations on the screen after messing with the exposure and the gain.
Popping the camera into the reflector or the refractor telescope yields nothing. I'm told
there is other software that is better supported and more current including SharpCap
and NINA. However so far neither of those recognize my StarShoot with the ASCOM
drivers loaded. 

Can someone tell me precisely what drivers I need to get the Option Starshoot (the original)
to work with SharpCap NINA or some other software? A link would be much appreciated.
What I downloaded from Orion have been AllInOneDrivers.ZIP AllInOneASCOM.ZIP and
ASCOMPlatform 6.1 and later 6.5. The only software where I'm able to deliver even 
a poor image to the laptop has been AstroCap. Or if there's a new and improved 
AstroCap beyond 1.3.9 do tell!