ASI1600mm cool

[Jokehoba]

That's right. APT has a Warming Aid to facilitate this. 

[Jokehoba]

1 hour ago, Gina said:

Re. APT - I don't like the way it turns cooling off to set the gain etc.  Also I find it hangs up after the first exposure sometimes - there seems to be no rhyme or reason about this.

I agree. It's annoying. Maybe I'll request a fix - Ivo is usually pretty good.

As I said above, as long as I only use APT's plans and no other features, it works OK.

[MattJenko]

7 hours ago, Jokehoba said:

Word of warning... I accidentally unscrewed the top while trying to remove the M42-threaded T-ring. Easily done it seems. 

I did this and crushed the dessicant tablets into a rough powder all over the sensor. Good moment...

[Demonperformer]

13 hours ago, Jokehoba said:

On reflection, I think I probably avoid using LiveView altogether with the ZWO. Single shots seem OK.

If you restart everything, can you run a plan WITHOUT touching LiveView?

I will give it another go ... I won't need to worry about focus for bias frames ...

[Demonperformer]

Decided to do a clean install of APT, to make sure I wasn't bringing any previous problems with me [Demo 3.13 - the latest one on APT website].

(1) Went to set up a bias frame plan. Under 'exposure' it said "in flat and bias plans, the exposure is auto selected". However, it will not let me add the plan with the exposure box empty. What do those who use this successfully do?

(2) Another thought has struck me: being quite a large chip, this presumably means quite a big file. What sort of time gap is required to download the file onto the laptop using USB2 (I don't have USB3)? I'm thinking that if I have been not allowing enough time for a download, the program might be tripping over itself - although I am not sure why this would be a problem with single-shot images. Still worth checking.

Thanks.

[Demonperformer]

Well, in the absence of APT, I decided to give it a go with sharpcap. The good news is that I managed to get it to take a photograph. The bad news is that I could not get it to do so consistently, or with any degree of logic ... set to take 2 frames with a sequence length of 1, it produced 7 images . Subsequently, Sharpcap crashed and I had to reboot the computer, after which it would not even show an image in the preview window.

However, the camera clearly works (which is always good to know when you have just bought it) and so it must be a problem with the software conversing with it.

it works.bmp

[Gina]

I haven't been able to get SharpCap to take a series of captures either   Pity because in other respects this is good software.  Regarding APT I tried increasing the pause between shots and it had no effect - the pause just seems to take place after the file download from the camera.    Why is it that no software seems to do all you want from it!!!???     I have yet to find anything that will work as I want it.  Even oaCapture that James has produced and mostly very good fails to work with exposures over 2s - he is working on it but not yet found a solution.

 

[Jokehoba]

3 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

(1) Went to set up a bias frame plan. Under 'exposure' it said "in flat and bias plans, the exposure is auto selected". However, it will not let me add the plan with the exposure box empty. What do those who use this successfully do?

(2) Another thought has struck me: being quite a large chip, this presumably means quite a big file. What sort of time gap is required to download the file onto the laptop using USB2 (I don't have USB3)? I'm thinking that if I have been not allowing enough time for a download, the program might be tripping over itself - although I am not sure why this would be a problem with single-shot images. Still worth checking.

Are you selecting 'Add New Bias Frames Plan'? Exposure box is blanked out so you can't enter anything anyway. 

In the ASI1600 settings you can limit the USB throughput. I have used the camera on USB2, keeping the limit around 40 and have not had any issues.

31 minutes ago, Demonperformer said:

Well, in the absence of APT, I decided to give it a go with sharpcap. The good news is that I managed to get it to take a photograph. The bad news is that I could not get it to do so consistently, or with any degree of logic ... set to take 2 frames with a sequence length of 1, it produced 7 images . Subsequently, Sharpcap crashed and I had to reboot the computer, after which it would not even show an image in the preview window.

FireCapture seems to work consistently, capturing AVI, liveview and multiple frames.

11 minutes ago, Gina said:

Why is it that no software seems to do all you want from it!!!???     I have yet to find anything that will work as I want it. 

It is a shame but I guess we have to live with it. What bugs me is when new versions change something I've come to rely on. This is more the case for general software rather than astro s/w (although Stellarium 0.15 has changed a feature I liked!).

[Andyb90]

Has anyone bought a 12v cigarette power cable for the camera?

I see the input on the camera is 2.1mm and needs to be 2a.

If anyone has a link to a decent cable that would be great.

Andy.

[Demonperformer]

1 hour ago, Gina said:

I have yet to find anything that will work as I want it.

This is the story of my life where software is concerned. I have even been giving thought to purchasing a copy of Nebulosity as people seem to think it is the best thing since sliced-bread, but will try a copy of firecapture first. Yet more software to clog up the laptop.

I wonder if, once I have found a set of software that actually works for me, I can get my laptop cleaned of everything it doesn't need (like the internet!) and just have on it the software I want. Probably cost more than getting a refurbished one to start from scratch!

[Gina]

You can remove software you don't want yourself.  Or you should be able to return the machine to the factory default be restoring from the restore partition.  That would wipe everything from your hard drive and reinstall Windows as originally supplied.  Remember to backup everything you want to keep first.  This is more drastic but does leave you with effectively a brand new computer.

[Demonperformer]

1 hour ago, Jokehoba said:

Are you selecting 'Add New Bias Frames Plan'? Exposure box is blanked out so you can't enter anything anyway.

This is the screen. <update current> does not work (is not pressable), pressing <add as new> ... well this was taken after I had already done that, so you can see the effect produced by doing so in the left hand window.

And yes, I could put a figure into the exposure box, but I'm not supposed to, so didn't add the result, because that would then be wrong.

And yes, I know the camera is not connected on this image; I just couldn't be bothered to set that up again just to take this image, but it was acting in exactly the same way when the camera was connected.

[Demonperformer]

13 minutes ago, Gina said:

You can remove software you don't want yourself.  Or you should be able to return the machine to the factory default be restoring from the restore partition.  That would wipe everything from your hard drive and reinstall Windows as originally supplied.  Remember to backup everything you want to keep first.  This is more drastic but does leave you with effectively a brand new computer.

Thanks, Gina. I will have to go looking for the restore partition. Unfortunately, this would still leave it (i) with an internet connection, and (ii) [even if I deleted the wifi drivers] wanting to waste resources looking for an internet connection. If I could find an operating system that had no internet capability [and knew it had no internet capability], I would swap to it in a heartbeat.

[Gina]

I think you should be able to disable that in the Windows settings.

[Demonperformer]

You could well be right, Gina.

The trouble is that, nowadays, everything is so resource-greedy and there is so much of it. The services tab in msconfig has pages and pages of stuff and I'm sure most of it is not necessary for running what I want to actually run. Unfortunately, it all has such incomprehensible names, you have no idea whether it is essential for the computer to run or whether it is just another piece of garbage wasting resources. I mean who knows what "Application Experience" or "Base Filtering Engine" or "Function Discovery Provider Host" actually do and what would happen if I stopped them. I suppose I could just try, but the risk of the entire system collapsing because I had stopped an essential service would just mean even more hassle. It's just that the software industry's paternalistic attitude towards its customers really gets me down at times.

But this is getting off-topic ...

[alexbb]

18 hours ago, Gina said:

Re. APT - I don't like the way it turns cooling off to set the gain etc.  Also I find it hangs up after the first exposure sometimes - there seems to be no rhyme or reason about this.

 

On 29/08/2016 at 11:55, moise212 said:

Not very on topic, but you might find this helpful for ASI and APT. I found out that before shooting images on bulb, shoot 1-2 frames on a short exposure (1-2s), but not on bulb + time. The BUSY problem goes away and the download works normal after. At least this worked for me with an ASI 120.

Alex

Have you tried this?

[Demonperformer]

I haven't, but will put it at the top of my 'things to try next' list.

Thanks.

[Jokehoba]

4 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

This is the screen. <update current> does not work (is not pressable), pressing <add as new> ... well this was taken after I had already done that, so you can see the effect produced by doing so in the left hand window.

And yes, I could put a figure into the exposure box, but I'm not supposed to, so didn't add the result, because that would then be wrong.

And yes, I know the camera is not connected on this image; I just couldn't be bothered to set that up again just to take this image, but it was acting in exactly the same way when the camera was connected.

Apologies, my mistake. The automatic exposure is not applicable (for some reason) for ASCOM so you must enter something. 

[Guest]

On 9/15/2016 at 19:00, cosmojaydee said:

Could anyone advise me on what software they use for cooling and capture , thanks

 

Nebulosity 4 - haven't had any problems with frame/focus, bias creation or capture

I have two other ZWO cameras - one for guiding in PHD2 and one for all sky monitoring (ASI120MC)

I run all 3 through a usb2 hub on the pier without issues

Hope that helps

David

 

[Gina]

SharpCap and APT.

[Andyb90]

2 hours ago, David_L said:

Nebulosity 4 - haven't had any problems with frame/focus, bias creation or capture

That's very encouraging. I'm going to give the demo a try. Cost is similar to SG Pro. Both seem very reasonably priced.

Andy.

[Demonperformer]

Right, I have been having another play and discovered what the problem is that I am having with APT & the 1600, and it is a problem I would not have been having, had I been doing my trials at the telescope rather than during the day. It seems that (for whatever reason) my version of APT+1600 does not like taking any exposure that is less than 1s long. As I have been trying to get it to (1) produce 'real' images in daylight and so inputting very short exposure times, and (2) produce bias frames, which again require extremely short exposures, this has been causing the program to crash. I will probably raise a question on the APTforum to see if any explanation/solution can be offered.

Starting from Alex's suggestion above, I tried doing half-a-dozen single shots of 1s, and they all worked. I alternated between having the lens cap on and off to ensure I was actually taking a new shot each time. Admittedly, it took what I considered to be a long time for the image to appear - from the time the countdown stopped, it was a good 12/15 count before it appeared on the screen. I then tried reducing the exposure to 1/50s and it crashed. So I reset it, and went straight into 'batch' control and set it to run 20 images of 1s, which it managed (I stopped it after the first three), and I then reduced it to 2 images of 1s, which it also managed. I then loaded the 'bias' batch (which I set to expose at 1/1000s) and it crashed. Restarted and did another 2*1s batch and it worked fine.

My problem being sub-second exposures, this will not explain the problems had by others duing astro-shoots, but this data may inspire a solution for that problem from someone else, so is offered on that basis.

Thanks.

EDIT: Oh, yes, and I also tried liveview. This also worked happily, although again there was an inordinately long pause between covering the lens and the image going dark. I guess this is something I am just going to have to accept while I am limited to USB2.

[Gina]

That's strange - I've had no particular problems with taking very short exposures with APT (it's more often with longer exposures).  I use the minimum 0.000032s (32μs) for bias frames and something like 0.01s (10ms) for flats.  Darks use the same as the lights for exposure, of course.  viz. 30s with135mm f2.5 lens and 120s with Esprit scope (f5) for NB imaging.

[Demonperformer]

Presumably you set up a bias frame plan for your bias frames? Are the 'bin' 'pause' and 'count' figures similar to the image I posted above? Do you enter the exposure as "0.000032", or iin some other format? [I have actually tried both "0.x" and "1/x", both of which the 'tip' says I can use, but could not get either to work. It would be good to know which you actually use - so I know that does work for you.]

Thanks.

[Gina]

Yes, I set up plans for everything I do.  Here's a bias plan.