Planetary Webcam and Mac

[richaddis]

Can anyone please recommend a Planetary Webcam that is 100% compatible with an Apple Mac computer? 

Had all sorts of problems with an ASI120MC and ended up sending it back. 

Thanks.

[mikeskor]

Hi Richaddis:

I think you could run any ZWO camera on a MAC as long as you first installed Parallels or another program that allows you run Windows programs. Then you could install and run programs like Sharpcap, Autostakkert and Registax which normally only run on a Windows machine. I haven't tried this personally but I do have Parallels on my Mac. I simply bought a Windows computer for capturing video.

Mike

[richaddis]

On 13 June 2016 at 05:18, mikeskor said:

Hi Richaddis:

I think you could run any ZWO camera on a MAC as long as you first installed Parallels or another program that allows you run Windows programs. Then you could install and run programs like Sharpcap, Autostakkert and Registax which normally only run on a Windows machine. I haven't tried this personally but I do have Parallels on my Mac. I simply bought a Windows computer for capturing video.

Mike

Hi Mike, thanks for the response.

i have tried running an ASI120MC in Parallels and it experienced problems in all softwares. I have sent it back now and am trying with the Neximage 5. It works in Parallels but I don't think the camera is as good for planetary capture.

Am on the verge of buying a cheap Windows laptop just to use for this hobby. Can I ask what specs your Windows machine has?

I have my eye on a Lenovo Ideapad... it only has 2gb of ram though and i don't know if that will be enough!

[knobby]

Maybe an ASI 224 and the excellent oacapture by our own James , I'm sure mine works ok, I'll check tonight .

[mikeskor]

 

30 minutes ago, richaddis said:

Am on the verge of buying a cheap Windows laptop just to use for this hobby. Can I ask what specs your Windows machine has?

Hi Richaddis:

I think the 2 GB may be insufficient. I would suggest a Windows machine with 8 GB and at least 500 GB storage. And USB 3.0. My machine only has 250 GB storage and I find that insufficient for long sessions with my ZWO224MC.

Mike

[Davey-T]

I use James oaCapture on MBP with various cameras, I also have a Bootcamp partition on it and capture direct to a USB3 Itb external drive which saves clogging up the HD, you can then do all your processing on the external drive and only download single TIFFs to your HD for processing.

Dave

[knobby]

Yep, the 224 works fine on a 5 year old Mac book air running el capitan

[richaddis]

On 17 June 2016 at 15:22, knobby said:

Maybe an ASI 224 and the excellent oacapture by our own James , I'm sure mine works ok, I'll check tonight .

Boy oh boy I wish I could afford a  slightly more expensive camera like the ASI224 but it's just too far out of my budget! 

 

On 17 June 2016 at 16:09, Davey-T said:

I use James oaCapture on MBP with various cameras, I also have a Bootcamp partition on it and capture direct to a USB3 Itb external drive which saves clogging up the HD, you can then do all your processing on the external drive and only download single TIFFs to your HD for processing.

Dave

There seem to be many people using the ZWO cameras on MacBooks with no problem but I tried the ASI120MC on 2 different macs, my 2012 MBP and a 2015 MBPR and the same problem occurred in OaCapture both times! It's a shame because I love the software and James is awesome with his support!

22 hours ago, knobby said:

Yep, the 224 works fine on a 5 year old Mac book air running el capitan

Hmmm I wonder if it's just the USB2 version of the ASI 120 that experiences Mac problems...

[knobby]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the usb3 versions are more stable .

[JamesF]

The USB2 ASI cameras certainly seem to be a bit hit and miss with some Mac hardware.  My experience is that the USB3 cameras are rock solid (even on El Capitan now Apple seem to have sorted out the mess they made of the USB subsystem), though the version of oacapture I intend to release later this month may be needed on some machines.

Other cameras that work as far as I am aware are the Imaging Source USB and FireWire astro cameras, QHY5L-II, the Celestron Skyris range, the Celestron Neximage Burst models and Point Grey USB2 cameras (though someone has raised an issue today with a colour model that we've not got to the bottom of yet).

I have written a driver for the Neximage 5 but it isn't fully tested yet.  I have drivers for the Toupcam cameras in the works, but they'll be new for the next release.  UVC-compliant webcams should work, but there are some that claim to be UVC whilst not quite adhering to the spec.  In theory Starlight Xpress cameras should work, but those are largely untested too.  The QHY5-II is recognised but I think my driver may be buggy.

Once the Toupcam support is done I'd like to think that support for the Mallincam Skyraider and Altair GPCAM models might fall out of that, but there are some wrinkles there and the Altair cameras particularly might be awkward.

Doesn't sound like a lot, all things considered

There are other cameras that it would be useful to have support for, but if the supplier doesn't provide a suitable driver then I end up having to ignore the camera or reverse-engineer a driver which is time-consuming and requires access to the cameras themselves.

James