best camera for all sky use

[Cath]

The Logitech HD C920 looks like it might have a 1/3" sensor.  I wouldn't describe it as "cheap", but it is cheaper than a QHY5L-IIc.  Of course there's still the pain of modding it, assuming that is possible.

The trouble with the logitech cameras James is that they tend to have long width PCB's. I have the logitech C9000 which is just like that - no way to mount it in a vertical cylinder unless the cylinder's radius is at least as much as the cameras width (front facing).

I guess that is perfectly fine though if a short (in height) wide (in width) all sky camera is OK - with the camera PCB offset from center in the case of the logitech camera I happen to have.

[Horwig]

Well, I've done a clean install of win 7 onto the obsy pc, with only the qhy drivers, EZPlanetary and Sharpcap, and guess what, the camera doesn't work. I've tried running it through a powered hub, and a different cable, must be the pc, but that's silly.

Huw

[Gina]

Ah so I'm not the only one having crazy problems

[JamesF]

Well, I've done a clean install of win 7 onto the obsy pc, with only the qhy drivers, EZPlanetary and Sharpcap, and guess what, the camera doesn't work. I've tried running it through a powered hub, and a different cable, must be the pc, but that's silly.

Huw

Does the camera show up in the device manager at all?  Could be as an unknown device perhaps.

James

[Horwig]

No it shows up in device managed just fine, drivers load and everything. Sharpcap recognises it, but no images are downloaded.

H

[Gina]

Dratted computers

[Davey-T]

No it shows up in device managed just fine, drivers load and everything. Sharpcap recognises it, but no images are downloaded.

H

Heartfelt sympathies Huw, having problems myself ATM.

Dave

[Horwig]

One of my work pcs has a USB3 pci card, might give that a go in the morning.

Huw

[DIYASTRO]

I vaguely remember playing about with a Watec 902h (1/2" sensor I think?) and viewing via a video grabber (K-world unit) Unfortunately most of my astro stuff is packed in boxes at the moment so cant really have a fresh look. I do remember that at the time I thought that the combination may make a basis for an all sky camera. I think that was what Michael Morris used but not too sure. A search of his posts may help perhaps.

1/2" pc camera sensors are not too common it seems.

The other video camera that I have tried is the Phil Dyer one I think they where about £100 or so and had a high sense up, OSD etc. I modified a couple to enable direct switch over from video to digital using the aforementioned video grabber, again packed in crates although I may be able to locate one if useful.

Boyd

[Davey-T]

I used the Minitron and K World thingy for meteor showers, haven't used it for a while though, was thinking of making it into an all sky camera but the settings are on the rear of the camera so bit awkward to change anything once built in.

Dave

[DIYASTRO]

Hi Davey,

The OSD setting 'buttons' are also on the rear of the Phil Dyer one but I removed the key pad and rewired so as to extend the OSD controls by several meters. Bit of a fiddle of a job but it works. The whole control box was quite small and that included the K-world video thingy.

Boyd

[Davey-T]

Hi Davey,

The OSD setting 'buttons' are also on the rear of the Phil Dyer one but I removed the key pad and rewired so as to extend the OSD controls by several meters. Bit of a fiddle of a job but it works. The whole control box was quite small and that included the K-world video thingy.

Boyd

Thanks Boyd, may give it a try, when the nights are short.

Dave

[Horwig]

Well would you believe it. Installed the pci USB card, and everything works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder what the issue was? Could it be power? Needs more thought.

Now I have to re install everything else...

Huw

[Gina]

Well done Huw

[JamesF]

The camera doesn't draw a huge amount of power compared to the limit for USB2 as far as I recall, so I'd be surprised if it were that.  I'm not 100% sure what happens if the power negotiations fail though.  I thought the device wouldn't get added to the USB bus, but perhaps it does and just won't operate correctly.  Was it an unpowered hub that you tried the camera in?

James

[Horwig]

No, I'd tried it with a powered hub, there is a note somewhere on QHY about the camera being very sensitive to voltage, but that's why I hoped a powered hub would sort it. The PCI card had power via a 4 pin drive connector, so who knows.

Interestingly, I've had an issue before of devices showing up on the usb bus, but being inoperable for data downloads, that was when I had a lightning strike close to the obsy. Since then I've had to change everything electronic.

Gone and ordered another pci card, lets see if that sorts it, I need this one back in my work machine soonest.

Hopefully will have some pictures tonight.

Huw

[Horwig]

Well I managed to crash Sharpcap again. Interesting set of alternate features between EZPlanetary and Sharpcap. With the former you can set auto exposure and gain, but can't really easily set it to do a timelapse of stills, where with the latter there's no way of setting auto exposure on the QHY, but it can be set to do an accurate time lapse. So from the point of view of an observing aid I reckon EZP wins, but if you want to show the progress of the night sky, Sharpcap wins hands down.

This is sharpcap, with 30 seconds exposure at 02:06 this morning, it crashed before the miky way rose.

Now the installation is looking as if it could be permanent, I really do need to align it with North somewhere meaningful.

H

[tdnicholls]

Have a look at HandyAVI - reads the live broadcast feed from EZP and allows you do time laspe etc

[Horwig]

Have a look at HandyAVI - reads the live broadcast feed from EZP and allows you do time laspe etc

Thanks Trevor, at the moment, EZP is still proving quite flakey, it seems to be locking up much easier than Sharpcap.

Huw

[Horwig]

         

That's how I feel this morning!

I think I've found out what the problem was with the QHY camera. It was the LENGTH of the cable!!!!!

Even though I'd changed the cable for another one, I'd changed it for another 3M cable. Yesterday, I tried a 2M cable, and the camera has been running faultlessly with EZP for nearly 24 hours now.

I'm annoyed, why didn't I try this before the ffaff of re installing windows.

Huw

[Gina]

That's interesting, I'm using a 5m USB cable with my QHY5.  Sorry you've had all that unnecessary work Huw, I seem to get that most of the time   So many "blind alleys" - groan

[Cath]

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work” - Thomas A. Edison

[Horwig]

EZP has a dark subtract feature, if I ever work out how it works. But just for fun, I removed the hot pixels from a capture using photoshop, dead easy job, just remove pure R,G,B pixels. Without them, camera is very clean.

Now to work out how EZPs dark subtraction works

Huw

[Gina]

Ah - an advantage of a colour camera   Of course, the likelyhood of getting two or more hot pixels in a cluster is pretty small, hadn't thought of that.

Also relating to colour cameras - the resolution of the Fujinon f1.4, 1.4-3.1mm FL zoom fisheye lens would seem to be poorer than a cluster of pixels.  The best resolution I could obtain last night on stars in The Plough by 1 in 800 focussing meant the stars covered 4 or 5 pixels of the QHY5 with 1280x1024 pixel resolution.  So a colour camera with similar pixel resolution should well cover stars.

[Horwig]

ASC back and working, powered hub now in the cable, and all is well.

Mind you, now that we are back to 'normal' weather, a dew heater is the least of my worries, any thoughts on a dome wiper?

Tried to rotate to put North bottom, but turned it the wrong way.

Played with EZP dark subtraction, simplicity itself. For the time being, I'm going to just put a cap (mine) over the dome to take darks and see where we go from there.

Huw