best camera for all sky use

[Horwig]

Camera is complete and in position. Needs checking focus when it gets dark, but so far so good.

Huw

[Horwig]

Here's its fov, it's set on auto exp and gain, lets see how it copes tonight.

H

[Gina]

Looking good

[Horwig]

It was going too well. Something strange with the camera, after a short while, EZPlanetary and PHD stop seeing pictures from it, investigating.

Huw

[tdnicholls]

Had that happen a couple of times, no reason I could find - put it down to the normal windows hicups 

[Horwig]

I'd had it working on a pc indoors, no problem, now it's playing up on both the obsy pc and my laptop. All running win 7

Huw

[Horwig]

It's slowly getting dark, and its still working. You can just make out Venus.

After a certain time, EZPlanetary would crash, but if I started another instance, that would work. Confused, you bet I am.

Huw

[Gina]

SharpCap has a tendency to do that too   Sometimes it will run all night, sometimes not.

[Horwig]

Interesting, thanks Gina.

BTW, that's not Venus, its lost in the sunset burn out. That's Jupiter.

H

[DIYASTRO]

Hue, One of the reasons that I keep thinking of stand alone guiding is the fact that most programmes like sharpcap, phd etc simply dump at will for no apparent reason the protocol they are to carry out.

The images so far look very promising! Thinking of making one of these all sky things myself!

Keep us posted as the twilight fades and the images get stronger with lots of stars!

Boyd

[Gina]

Interesting, thanks Gina.

BTW, that's not Venus, its lost in the sunset burn out. That's Jupiter.

H

I thought Jupiter was in the east - but I expect you're right. 

[Horwig]

I was really confused, and had to use Stellarium to check. Jupiter was due South at 20:50  when that capture was done.

Since then, nothing worked. Can you trust computers to get anything right?

Huw

[Gina]

Not in my experience!

[Horwig]

Well, I've re-installed drivers for the QHY on the obsy pc, seems to work at the moment. Time will tell.

The only difference I could see was that I'd installed drivers from the CD on my house PC, and downloaded them for the other two, explain that one away.

huw

[Gina]

Different driver versions?

[JamesF]

Different driver versions?

Could be.  Or different versions of the firmware even, as the firmware is reloaded into the camera every time you plug it in.

One of the frustrating things about QHY is their provision of camera firmware that has no apparent means for identifying the version or release date, so you have no idea whether you have the latest or not.

James

[Gina]

Hmm... I see - that's a bit offputting   Still, I guess if they work that's what matters

[Horwig]

Thanks all, I think it best if I shift this discussion about EZPlanetary to software, I'm still having fun.

Huw

[Horwig]

Ok, swapped over house and obsy PCs, EZPlanetary has been running now for a couple of hours, lets see how the day goes. I'm working tonight till about midnight, I'll set it up to record a frame every once in a while whilst I'm away.

Interestingly, orientation is different to PHD, this is North down, West left.

Huw

[Horwig]

Spoke too soon. EZP froze as per usual, downloaded Sharpcap to try.

Huw

[Cath]

One of the frustrating things about QHY is their provision of camera firmware that has no apparent means for identifying the version or release date, so you have no idea whether you have the latest or not.

Really

A supplier (any supplier) of commercial/industrial software/hardware must always build such basic information into their firmware/software/hardware, surely ??

Such a lot of the available commercial (for the home user) astro gear actually contains so very little quality hardware/software/firmware these days when you look at the prices they charge

[JamesF]

You'd have thought so, but if there is a way to find the version I've been completely unable to identify it.  There are plenty of QHY cameras with more than one version of firmware available, too

James

[Horwig]

Sharpcap running, and it's giving me quite a range of exposure control, but can't get it to auto exposure, the button is greyed out.

Anyway, Gina, your warning about lens positioning in the dome was probably right, now I've got the exposure short enough to see speculars in daylight I noticed this one in the red circle, it's the sun on my tv aerial. OUCH!

Huw

[JamesF]

I wonder if it's also worth flocking the inside of the box, to reduce internal reflections?

James

[Cath]

hang about !

Are we talking about an 'all sky camera' that is used for deciding about whether the sky is clear enough for telescope use, or something else I wonder ?