Celestron Skyris 445M Firstlight on PBK LOHA Stage 2 PST

[Psychobilly]

Is that the firmware with the useful - this might stop your camera working warning

[JamesF]

Don't they always say that?

James

[Psychobilly]

Probably but seeing as they don't give you any info on what issues the new firmware addresses.... or what new one's it introduces...

[Psychobilly]

Tried the camera today and suprise suprise....

It  wasn't working  in USB3.0 mode again so I decided to bite the bullet and do the firmware upgrade the camera was at rev 88 and the new firmware is rev 117... The new firmware needed new drivers that are included inthe download so those needed to be installed as well and the camera popped up straight away in USB3.0 mode in IC Cap 2.3...

Fingers crossed ....

Peter...

[JamesF]

That's good news.  I wonder if they share firmware with the IS cameras?

James

[Psychobilly]

And then...

It stopped working again LOL....

This normally gets it working again...

Disconnect the Camera

To remove "Hidden" or "disconnected" devices in Device Manager I create a batch file usually calling it "hidden_devices,bat" with the following two commands...

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc

The batch file needs to be  run with Administrator privelleges so right click it and use "Run as administrator"  if you have UAC running then allow the batch file to run... Then seect show hidden devices in the View menu of Device manager...

With the camera disconnected you will have at least two entries one in the "Imaging devices" section the other in the "Universal Serial Bus controllers" section if you have been trying the camera in different ports you may have multiple entries delete them all!!!

Start the Driver Setup program with the camera disconnected...

When prompted connect thre camera...

Pray...

Start IC Cap...

Hopefully the camera will be working...

Peter...

[JamesF]

Does it work at all/reliably if plugged into a USB2 socket?

James

[DrRobin]

Hence the phrase 'plug n pray'.  Or in your case 'plug, fiddle, pray and fiddle some more'.  That is really annoying that you are having so much trouble, especially when it is sunny outside and the sun looks great in Ha, see my about to be posted post.

I hope you get it sorted soon.

Robin

[Psychobilly]

Does it work at all/reliably if plugged into a USB2 socket?

James

It used to..  I havent tried it lately...

I really want the 30 fps performance that USB3.0  on USB2.0 the max is 15 fps...

It's Raining here  Robin so still playing with the camera and Camera lens...

As long as I get a 100% reliable fix method for when it stops then it only takes a few secs to get it working... Annoying yes but if it's what I need to do then so be it...

Losing the connection while the camera is in use nearly always stops it working until you clean it out  as above...

Peter...

[JamesF]

15 fps is better than 0 fps though.  Not that I'm suggesting you should settle for that, but it does at least get you something whilst you iron the problems out or decide it's not fixable and send it back.

James

[Psychobilly]

I think I would go for 60 fps form the DMK though... That just works...and just go for some features...

Scope and EQ3 Pro will be heading for th office from next week as I  wont be at home while the suns out  Start before sunrise finish after sunset... So it will be a quick snatch and grab during the dinner hour from the carpark...

Peter...

[stephen_usher]

Is that the firmware with the useful - this might stop your camera working warning

They always say that!

[Psychobilly]

I guess if it did you would still be able to send it back under warranty to get them to sort it out?

[James R Lafferty]

I picked up the Skyris 445M this week to try out for solar Ha.  It worked 30fps (usb 3) out of the box with both Icap and IC Capture.  It works 15 fps on usb 2.  The biggest disappointment has been lack of gamma control on the camera which has been disabled by the mfg for some reason.  Tough to do good prom shots without that gamma setting.  TIS cameras have that setting enabled, but for whatever reason they don't on their collaboration with Celestron.  You can see first light shots with this camera at :  http://scopetrader.com/jimlafferty/?page=59

Regards

Jim

Jim Lafferty

[stephen_usher]

Surely gamma correction is (or should be) a purely post-processing step. The job of the sensor is to recover the raw data faithfully?

How you process the raw data afterwards is a separate problem and should never change the raw data.

I imagine that the reason for disabling it though is so as to get the raw throughput over USB3.0 as we're talking high data rates, which would require high-end and power hungry processing. It's unlikely that the USB power supply would be beefy enough.

[James R Lafferty]

Using the gamma slider in solar Ha imaging works a bit differently than using the gamma settings in post processing.  The gamma setting during image capture is an important part of getting the kind of image Im looking for, in terms of contrast and detail, esp when shooting prominences.

Jim

[Luke]

I'm really surprised that there is no gamma control!

I find it very useful to adjust gamma for solar and lunar shots.

For solar H-a I can get (for me) okay proms and disc detail in the same capture in 8 bit mode using my Grasshopper 3 if the gamma is about right. That was very useful today, where fast moving cloud made it difficult to get just one capture

[James R Lafferty]

Here is a higher res image using the Skyris 445M in fair seeing.  The scope was a double stacked Lunt 100.  I tried the camera today on some prominence shots but the lack of gamma just didn't cut it for me--I ended up going back to my DMK41 and the ZWO1120M for those.  Still, the Skyris performs well on the surface--esp with the smaller pixels. 

Regards,

Jim

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I somehow missed this thread previously. Some awesome results with these Skyris cameras. Very interesting