Jump to content

Banner.jpg.b89429c566825f6ab32bcafbada449c9.jpg

Celestron Skyris 445M Firstlight on PBK LOHA Stage 2 PST

Psychobilly

By Psychobilly
in Imaging - Solar

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 68
  • Created
  • Last Reply
allcart

allcart

Posted
Posted

damn, I haven't accounted for the clocks going back yet. that means the sun won't clear my rooftops till after midday, and even then it will be lower in the sky so will suffer from the dreaded tree nebula in next doors garden.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Psychobilly

Psychobilly

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I think I need to find a site near the office where I can  get a lunchtime solar fix.... It won't be long before  the only weekday daylight I see is through the office/factory windows :(

Just checked out our back yard and got a clear view of the sun at the moment so might have to look what I can setup probably bring the EQ3-pro into work it's not ideal but after modifying my home pier to take the EQ6 it's not needed from the house anymore...

Peter...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
DrRobin

DrRobin

Posted
Posted

I hope you don't me posting on this thread since I don't have a Snow White and the 7 dwarfs avatar?

But seriously, looking good Peter, I would be keen to see the comparison with the DMK series.  Helen, also a shoot out between the higher resolution/bigger chip and a DMK41 would be good. 

I know I said I was going to take more solar pictures in October and we are now half way through with only one session on the 9th to my name.  This weather must break soon?  In the winter, I can image at home from the garage and see the sun through the most of the day.  The car park at work is reasonably clear to the south so can image from anytime after about 10am until sunset as long as the clear spells coincide with my breaks, which been flexible can do.  My solar scope is like a car jack, nearly always in the boot, just in case.

Robin

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Helen

Helen

Posted
Posted

I'm now home, but have lost the sun behind the trees at the back.  I'm not sure if I'll get any views from the front later, depends whether it clears the houses in the street or not.  (On the first day my PST arrived I did go and plonk myself on the pavement opposite to get a look, but doing that with an imaging rig would be overly challenging and my opposite neighbours may not take kindly to me camping on their front lawn  :rolleyes: )

Helen

EDIT: forgot to say I've now bought a USB3 card for my laptop so need to test that too.

And if I don't get the Sun I may manage a test with the moon later...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Helen

Helen

Posted
Posted

Here's a lunar shot.  The air was full of moisture (they are forecasting fog soon).  Taken with a Megrez 90 on an EQ6AZ.  There was a bit of drift, so not sure if that affected the crispness.  About 1500 frames, stacked and wavelets in Registax 5, and then finally processed in CS2.  I lost the moon behind the trees before I could do a comparison with the DMK41 - sorry!  The max frame rate even with USB3 is 20.

post-374-0-14989000-1381878216_thumb.jpg

Helen

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Psychobilly

Psychobilly

Posted
  • Author
Posted

The ROI works at the software level just producing smaller file sizes and not higher frame rates - at least that's the case with the 445... so it is still a max of 30 fps...

I don't know how they can quote higher frame rates when at least at release the camera and software doesn't support them... :(

I checked the Celestron site a few days ago and they no longer quote the higher framerates in their specifications for  the 618 is now 120fps , the 445 it's  30 fps and the 274 it's 20 fps there have been quite a few subtle changes to the blurb  specs since the cameras were released...I guess suppliers need to check their specs they are using on their websites ;)

While I am happy with the results when the camera decides it wants to play nice , I had a very frustrating few hours with the camera yesterday and basically got nothing when the sun was putting on quite a performance...

The Celestron and Imaging Source have new Firmware and Drivers but warn you then might stop the camera from working - GREAT!!!

USB3 operation is decidedly flaky  it took me a few days to get it working at all on my laptop - after a lot of searching I had to update the USB3 chipset firmware in the laptop to one which hasn't officially been released by the manufacturer then yesterday the camera decided it no longer wanted to work in usb3 mode on my laptop or my desktop which it used to work on...

The guys at FLO are  great trying to help me sort things out by speaking to the techies at  Celestron but I suspect the camera will be going back to get checked out... :(

My venerable old  DMK21AU04AS  still runs happily at 60 fps albeit with a smaller chip (1/4" v 1/3")  a quarter of the number of pixels (640x480 v 1280x960) and 8 lower bit depth (8bit v 12 bit)

Peter...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
allcart

allcart

Posted
Posted

Thats very dissapointing news Peter. I had toyed with the idea of getting a 445 or 274, but maybe I'll hold on a bit longer. At the price of these there must be more than one capable camera to choose from. I do love my DMK's though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
JamesF

JamesF

Posted
Posted

Not good at all :(

It does seem that USB3 is a bit flaky at the moment.  I wonder if that's because many people don't really perceive a need for it so it isn't getting the exposure that's required to iron the bugs out quickly?

James

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Psychobilly

Psychobilly

Posted
  • Author
Posted

When we tried it at Kelling it wouldn't work on my laptop but would work on a Toshiba I3 running Windoze 8  straight out of the box...  So it could be down to the PC's USB3 Hardware and Firmware... It worked straight away on my Desktop at home running Windows 7 Ultimate  x64 with a really cheap USB3 PCI-e add in card but no longer works on that  and I didn't fancy dragging that big tower out to the garden every time I want to use the camera.. It's academic now since the camera doesn't paly nice on it either...

In all cases the camera was recognised , the drivers installed and initially recognised in the IC Cap software (comes up with model and serial number)  but it then hangs with an error that the camera is in live mode but  not streaming video...

I guess the manufacturers cant test it on every conceivable combination of hardware/firmware OS and other software ....

Peter...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
DrRobin

DrRobin

Posted
Posted

In all cases the camera was recognised , the drivers installed and initially recognised in the IC Cap software (comes up with model and serial number)  but it then hangs with an error that the camera is in live mode but  not streaming video...

I guess the manufacturers cant test it on every conceivable combination of hardware/firmware OS and other software ....

Peter...

I have a DMK21, DMK41, DFK31, DFK21AU618 and all work fine on WinXP laptop and Win7 32bit laptop, but the DFK31 gives the same error on a Win7 64 bit laptop.  All the others work on the 64 bit version.  Since I don't use my DFK31now I haven't got round to sorting it out.

I did have a similar problem once before with one of these cameras, but just re-installed the drivers and it worked fine.  I think maybe a windows update changed one of the DLLs that the driver used.

You can't expect the manufacturer's to test every hardware solution, but they should test all the recent versions of the OS, or at least stipulate a minimum version.  When I used to write software for work we had to test the software on everything from Win95 to XP, including NT and all the other variants.  About 30% of the development time was spent on making it compatible.

Robin

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Psychobilly

Psychobilly

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Uninstalled the software, removed all traces of the camera from device manage including the hidden instances, Re-installed the software and drivers from the CD and at the moment it's working again in USB3 mode...

Either that or it's working because it's raining again....

I can see this being a love hate realtionship as when it's good  it's very good...

Peter...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Psychobilly

Psychobilly

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Unistalled re-installed and it's working again.. and while it's working it works in sharpcap...

Just copied the installation CD to the SSD so at least I can quickly do the clean=up and re-install...

There's no logic to whats happening  and I really want this Camera to work as it's seems nicely matched to the LOHA...

I won't bore you with anymore updates... but I'm glad I keep my hair and finger nails short!!!

Peter....

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Luke

Luke

Posted
Posted

It took me ages to get my Grasshopper 3 working with FireCapture. For no particular reason it suddenly seemed to work, after repeatedly installing, uninstalling, etc. What other people did to get theirs working didn't help at all. It just seemed to work all of a sudden and I couldn't put my finger on anything I hadn't already done umpteen times. So I couldn't write somewhere on the Internet what to do for that camera, I had no idea in the end.

Hope you get there soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Psychobilly

Psychobilly

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I have fitted a c-m42 adaptor and a fujinon 35/3.5 lens so i can keep the testing the camera away from the scope... and do some codec comparisons with an ISO lens test chart as a target...

If the cleanout and re-install get's it working if/when it falls over then it's a workaround for the time being...

Dr Robin - I think we agree but I badly worded my statement...

Firecapture is working as well now... Well sort off.. is you select a ROI and then go back  it gets the sensor size wrong and the max frame rate is 15 fps

Also tried capturing straight to a USB3.0 HDD and no frames dropped at 30 fps with the Y800 or RGB24 codecs... I have 1 TB and 640GB  USB3.0 HDD's and a 32GB  mega fast USB3 Stick  so it looks like theres no need to capture to the Laptops SSD ...

Peter...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.