imaging and guiding with 2 Atik cameras

[continuum]

I image with an Atik 314L+ and guide with a Meade DSI. Recently the Meade has been failing so I want to guide with my Atik 314E colour camera, but so far I have been unable to get both Atiks to operate together using Artemis and PHD.

I have tried connecting in different orders but when I connect the 314L+ to Artemis followed by the 314E to PHD the 314L+ image locks with the screen divided into half black and half white (This is in daylight).

Clearly there must be a way of connecting these same make cameras - what am I doing wrong?

Incidentally I am connecting both through a 7 port powered USB ( same for Atik/Meade)

Both Atiks work correctly individually.

Any help would be welcomed.

Ron

[Chris Rowland]

I've connected an ATK383L+ and an ART16 at the same time.  But not two cameras of the same type.  The 383 and ATK16 use different drivers.

Try contacting Atik Support.

It would be interesting to try the ASCOM drivers, there are two, intended for this scenario.  It will be interesting to see if the driver can see both cameras in it's setup.  You choose one in PHD and choose the second driver for the acquisition application.

Chris

[Gina]

I use up to three Atik cameras at the same time but only for imaging - I don't think I've ever tried using one for guiding.  Oh and all three are connected to one powered USB hub.  For guiding I use either a Lodestar (best) or QHY5 which was the first one I bought.  The QHY5 works well with a guide scope but was not really sensitive enough with an OAG.

[AlistairHowie]

This is a reply from Jonathan at Atik, published on their support forum re a potentially related problem... http://www.atik-cameras.com/forum/index.php?topic=358.0 .  It may be of help - basically make sure both CCDs are on before launching any software

We have had problems with Titans operating in parallel with other cameras, and to get around this we implemented a locking scheme which is used to prevent different programs from interfering with one another's cameras. This was done just over two years ago (it went into version 3.19 of Capture), so it should certainly be in the software that you are running. However, it does rely on both cameras being connected and switched on before starting the software (eg Capture) - this is because the locks are based on USB ids, and these can change when different devices are connected or disconnected. We have had a recent report of a similar issue when PHD and Capture are used together, which I am currently looking into. It is difficult to understand why the Titan should fail after 20 minutes of perfect operation - the problems we have seen occur when a program (eg Capture) is launched and tries to communicate with a camera which is already in use. Could anything be happening 20 minutes into your imaging session (eg another device being connected or disconnected) that might explain it?
 

[Sp@ce_d]

This is a reply from Jonathan at Atik, published on their support forum re a potentially related problem... http://www.atik-cameras.com/forum/index.php?topic=358.0 .  It may be of help - basically make sure both CCDs are on before launching any software

We have had problems with Titans operating in parallel with other cameras, and to get around this we implemented a locking scheme which is used to prevent different programs from interfering with one another's cameras. This was done just over two years ago (it went into version 3.19 of Capture), so it should certainly be in the software that you are running. However, it does rely on both cameras being connected and switched on before starting the software (eg Capture) - this is because the locks are based on USB ids, and these can change when different devices are connected or disconnected. We have had a recent report of a similar issue when PHD and Capture are used together, which I am currently looking into. It is difficult to understand why the Titan should fail after 20 minutes of perfect operation - the problems we have seen occur when a program (eg Capture) is launched and tries to communicate with a camera which is already in use. Could anything be happening 20 minutes into your imaging session (eg another device being connected or disconnected) that might explain it?

Interesting... Up until last week I was running 3 x 314L+'s with no problems for a while now. Over the past week I've started to see this problem & I can only get 2 of them to run now. If I run the third it intermittently locks out 2 of them. I've been reorganising the triple shooter & in tidying the cable loom I swapped out the USB cables for shorter ones. I suspect they might be the cause so I've started putting the longer originals back to test. They run into a MountHubPro. Interestingly, even though I'm plugging the cables into the same ports ( All ports are labelled) Windaes wanted to install the device driver again.

Not all cables are equal! Have you checked them?

[Merlin66]

I had issues using an ATiK16ic for guiding and an ATiK16icS for imaging under AstroArtV5.

The solution was to reconfigure the VID&PID in the registry files.

Each camera has a unique identifier in its USB\VID config file which needs to be consistent with the Windows registry and Windows .inf files.

Two cameras under AA5.zip

[continuum]

Well, my query has produced some very interesting responses. Thank you all very much. I have emailed Atik support and awaiting their reply, but meanwhile Merlin's attachment seems a likely way forward. I'm glad the procedure is well spelled out as I am not too well aquainted with the darker sides of software!

Ron

[continuum]

Atik confirm that there should be no problem running 2 cameras. Meanwhile it looks like I have problem with the USB controller in the computer. Corrupted or missing driver which I thought I had overcome with a reinstall, but the cameras are still not working although the EQMOD is fine and running off the same feed from the laptop and USB hub.  Although I've tried reinstalling the Atik software ( and the filter wheel connects) it appears that it's now a camera driver problem. So I shall go through the install again and hope for the best.

For the record I have tried changing cables and reinstalling Ascom plus .net framework 3.5 as stated by Atik.

Ron