SPC880 (900) Colour problems

[Cragproductions]

Hi everyone, I am fairly new to astronomy and this is my first post here.

I bought my first telescope about 2 months ago and then more recently an SPC 800 webam, from ebay.

I've only really had 3 nights where I have been able to practice imaging, but One thing I noticed was a distinct lack of any colour. At first, I thaught it was due to the fact I'm using a small 130mm Newtonian, but when I tried mars, which was bright orange in the eyepiece, and noticed that too was B&W I began to wonder.

Today I have been testing my camera in the daytime to see if it is picking up any colour and I can say that it is almost definitely monochrome. It DOES pick colour up, but it basically hues the whole image with one colour. (so it may be red/pale blue instead of Black/white) very strange.

I thought that it may have been set to RAW mode or something by the original owner but I downloaded the macro program and attempted to reprogram it to optimized colour. – there was no change at all.

I actually tried all 4 modes and there was no change.

Is anyone here aware of an issue like this?

If the camera is set to B&W Raw, will it be tinted with colours as mine is, or will it only ever be B&W?

One extra thing is I am currently using Windows 8 on my laptop – so that may have cause issues while trying to swap modes, because to be honest other than saying “successful” there really didn’t seem to be anything happening.

Many thanks

(And thanks for all the info while I have been lurking, that has helped me progress)

This is my third ever attempt at astrophotography, the colour in the image was manually added. Taken with a 3x TAL barlow

[Starlight 1]

Sorry that I can not be any help with your webcam ,But Welcome to the forum .

[JamesF]

As far as I'm aware the only way you can re-flash the camera with the SPC900 firmware is from winXP.

However, it would first be useful to know what capture program and settings you're using, and to test it on an operating system release that's known to support the camera, eg. Win7.

James

[Cornelius Varley]

It might be handy if you captured an image using Sharpcap. The program creates a small text file that contains the settings used during the capture. The text file can be copied and pasted here and might give an indication to the problem.

Peter

[Cragproductions]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

I use sharp cap mostly.

I have changed every setting there is and still its monocrome. Thinking that it might be sharpcap, i tried the SPC900 capture software. same monochrome problem.

Tried the onboard camera with my laptop using sharp cap, and its full colour.

Im fairly confident that its the camera, since no matter what i have not been able to get more than 2 colours on an image, even when pointing at a vivid scene where there are tons.

For example, i pointed at a window that had a red flag in it. the flag was red, but the rest of the sceen was also washed with red. using various settings i could change the colour but it would only ever be monochrome. i.e. the white window sills and net curtains would always be tinted instead of white. In scenes that should have multiple colours, the scene will always be monochrome. (usually B&W until i tweak with the auto white settings)

As far as i know, im not flashing the firmware to turn it from an 880 to 900 - im changing the capture mode. (macro its called?)

I have a feeling its been set to B&W Raw by the origonal owner so i want to change it to Oprimized colour mode.

Many thanks

[mallorcasaint]

I had the same problem initially and the answer was the exposure and frame rate. when i reduced the frame rate and adjusted the exposure,. Bingo! Colour! By the way, you won't see a great deal of colour on the screen but when you stack and adjust the wavelets it will come out.

[carean01]

Having the same problem with mine. I flashed it from an 840K to SPC900 on a Windows XP machine, played around with the four marcos and may have left it in B/W mode (or may have not, not really sure). Back on my Windows 7 machine, I've tried redoing the macros to no effect. I also noticed that I can't adjust any of the Fine Tuning in WcRmac. Will try it again on the original XP machine and let you know what happens.

Best of luck sorting yours out,

Andrew

[Tribal-Wolf]

It sounds like exposure but hard to tell. I have my exposure set to about -8 for mars and the saturation right up. But if it's doing it on normal everyday stuff it could even be a driver issue. You can only flash the cam in xp, vista or 7 are no good, if you have Win7 Pro or Ultimate you can download virtual xp for free from microsoft and it will work in that. Does you cam have any other mods like the long exposure or amp off/on?

[mallorcasaint]

You don't actually need to flash the camera to work in Windows 7. Here is a custom driver that works perfectly in Win7.

You need to install the drivers as per normal with win xp but replace the file I have attached, rename the file from .txt to .inf. replace the existing camvid40.inf and when installing specify the driver as camvid.inf.

Credit for driver to "Colin"

Camvid40.txt

[Tribal-Wolf]

You don't actually need to flash the camera to work in Windows 7. Here is a custom driver that works perfectly in Win7.

You need to install the drivers as per normal with win xp but replace the file I have attached, rename the file from .txt to .inf. replace the existing camvid40.inf and when installing specify the driver as camvid.inf.

Credit for driver to "Colin"

No but you can't FLASH the cam in windows 7 it just doesn't work. The software loads etc but flashing will not work.

[Cragproductions]

Thanks for the further replies.

I have tweaked every setting possible and i have never seen more than two colours on screen.

pointing at a lush green bush, with a blue sky, grey road and brown bricks for example, would just have the whole scene washed in one colour. whites become pink etc.

when lowering exposure it just gets darker but the lack of colour remains.

So using the 'macros' to switch betwen modes can only be done in xp?

Unfortunately i know very little about what has been done to it so far, as i bought it second hand.

it does seem to be a similar issue to what Andrew describes...

I will try using an xp emulator and switching modes again.

Kind reagrds

Dave

[mallorcasaint]

No but you can't FLASH the cam in windows 7 it just doesn't work. The software loads etc but flashing will not work.

My point is, you don't need to flash the camera at all! It works fine in Win7 with the custom driver I attached.

Just install the WINXP drivers into Win7 then replace the file Camvid40.inf with the custom driver Camvid40.txt and then rename this file to Camvid40.inf and overwrite the original file. I can't make it any clearer.

[Tribal-Wolf]

True but if his problem is that it was flashed already and incorrectly he will need windows xp to reflash it.

[JamesF]

If the camera has an unknown history and is behaving oddly however, it would make sense to flash it back to a known state.

The effect the OP is seeing reminds me a little of what happens when the camera is in raw Bayer mode.

Can you post a single frame still from the camera so we can see what it looks like?

James

[todd8137]

sounds duff to me

[mallorcasaint]

I still think it's settings.

[Cragproductions]

Found out what the problem was...

My IR filter.

The camera came with an Astronomik Planet IR Pro 742 - which absolutely destroys any colour from the scene. making it effectively B&W.

Is it usual for an IR filter to have such a dramatic effect on the colour?

While looking at it, i can barely see through it (its mirrored both sides)

Can anyone suggest an IR filter that i should use as a replacement, that wont completely saturate the colours?

Many thanks

[Cragproductions]

Thinking that maybe the filter may be much too much for the light gathering of an Explorer 130mm?

[mallorcasaint]

MMM? I use an IR block filter for imaging Jupiter and the colour is fine. Very strange this. My filter is the Revelation Astro IR Blocking filter and I can see very clearly through it.

[Cragproductions]

with the filter in my hand now, i simply cannot see through it at all.

It is highly mirrored on both sides.

If i hold my eye right up to it i can vaguely make something out but it is very dim and discoloured...

When put on the camera it completely removes all trace of colour (even from viid daylight scenes)

[mallorcasaint]

That doesn't sound right. My filter is practically clear and sharpens the image when I look through it. Looks like that is what your problem is.

[Cragproductions]

Can anyone suggest a reasonably priced (£20 or so) filter that will be useful for the SPC, but not so strong it blinds it!

cheers

[Cragproductions]

Revelation Infra Red Blocking Filter 1.25" is this what your using Mallorcasaint?

[mallorcasaint]

Yep. That's the one.

[Cornelius Varley]

Found out what the problem was...

My IR filter.

The camera came with an Astronomik Planet IR Pro 742 - which absolutely destroys any colour from the scene. making it effectively B&W.

Is it usual for an IR filter to have such a dramatic effect on the colour?

While looking at it, i can barely see through it (its mirrored both sides)

Can anyone suggest an IR filter that i should use as a replacement, that wont completely saturate the colours?

Many thanks

I think that filter is an IR pass filter. It cuts out most of the visible spectrum and only allows IR wavelengths to pass, which is why you where getting the unusal colours with a colour camera.

Peter