Prism Pro

[Hyperion Astronomy]

Of course, all questions are welcome. The temperatures delta trigger has been replaced with focuser temperature compensation by the developer which seems to be more efficient( opinions will differ of course).

I use a 14.5” f/4.5 Newtonian in the Atacama desert and focus every 45 minutes all year round. The great thing about temp comp is that it is adjusting focus all night for you. This leads to less focusing and more imaging. 

[harry page]

Quote

Hi

I have downloaded the trial and will give it a go

At the moment I am a SGP user which is very capable product , but for me does suffer from stability problems

do you support most cameras direct ( no ascom ) as this seems to be a weak point in sgp

and I know you will say its prisim is stable , but this is of a major concern to users like me - crashes hurt a lot !!!

Regards

Harry Page

BTW as noted before you should let people know how big the download file is

 

[Hyperion Astronomy]

Thanks Harry, I will certainly put an indication about the size of the file. Also, huge fan of tour work and tutorials.

Some equipment is supported without ascom such as : Atik, OPTEC, SBIG, ZWO to name a few. As for stability, a software developer such as Cyril or anybody else will ensure his own work through great coding and exhaustive testing as we do, this leaves the environment said software lives in or changes to the drivers that said software supports. An example: one of the latest Windows updates caused a major panic in ASCOM ( DCOM Components in Windows) which caused my dome controller to lose functionality and I was unable to close the shutter. Thank goodness there was no bad weather to occur until we could physically close it. 

To answer your question with the knowledge I have, I used PRISM and ascom in Chile for months on end without a hitch, remotely and automatically. This is where I will not speculate what the limitless number of configurations out there will do. What I guarantee is support through these issues if they ever arise. 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Hyperion Astronomy

[harry page]

Hi

thanks for the reply--cant beat a good video    , I have just made prism crash on my first go with my sx h35 camera

now this may not be a fair go as I have had problems with this computer using other programs as well so may be hardware related

I wish to try prisim on my shed computer can I do this ? or am I restricted to 1 computer

 

Harry

[Hyperion Astronomy]

Just now, harry page said:

Hi

thanks for the reply--cant beat a good video    , I have just made prism crash on my first go with my sx h35 camera

now this may not be a fair go as I have had problems with this computer using other programs as well so may be hardware related

I wish to try prisim on my shed computer can I do this ? or am I restricted to 1 computer

 

Harry

You absolutely can try it on any computer you want. We offer a fully functional trail with 0 restrictions on functions and best of all, you get to choose what version of prism you wish to test everytime you start it. 

[RayD]

35 minutes ago, Hyperion Astronomy said:

You absolutely can try it on any computer you want. We offer a fully functional trail with 0 restrictions on functions and best of all, you get to choose what version of prism you wish to test everytime you start it. 

I just had it crash running simulators.  I'll persevere with real stuff also.

[Hyperion Astronomy]

When you need assistance, please email me screenshots and descriptions of your hardware and the issue you are having so we can proceed properly here : Hyperion.astronomy@gmail.com

I remain at this comminity’s disposal for any questions. 

[harry page]

Hi

I see the pro version offers 2 camera use , but I presume this means 1 for capture and 1 for guiding ? as most people do not have unguidable mounts

Harry

[AngryDonkey]

Hi Harry,

I'm sure Hamza will answer this better but one of the reasons I tried the software was to see if it could work with my dual rig. From memory the Pro versions doesn't support two imaging cameras but the 'Advanced' version does (on top of the guide camera). This also includes coordination between the cameras (including dithering) which was what I was looking for for the dual rig. Unfortunately I discovered that in this configuration it was not possible to use the automation features i.e. running a complete imaging sequence by itself, it would have only worked in a 'semi automatic' mode with manually solving and slewing to targets, flip etc. which was not really something I could live with.

So I'm still looking for a good dual scope software to sync my acquisitions on both scopes including dithering. I believe MaximDL can be used with a third party tool to achieve this but it looked far from straightforward and would have required two PCs or additional software (SkyX and CCDSoft). So in the meantime I'm sticking with two instances of SGP which works ok (but no dithering and some lost subs).

Edited April 18, 2018 by AngryDonkey
Grammar

[Gasman]

1 hour ago, AngryDonkey said:

 So in the meantime I'm sticking with two instances of SGP which works ok (but no dithering and some lost subs).

Is it possible to run two instances of Prism to achieve what you want?

Steve

[AngryDonkey]

2 hours ago, Gasman said:

Is it possible to run two instances of Prism to achieve what you want?

I don't think so because then you loose the coordination between the two main cameras which would have been the whole point of changing software (I do appreciate that PRISM can do a lot more than just acquiring images but there wasn't anything else that I needed).

[RayD]

6 minutes ago, AngryDonkey said:

I don't think so because then you loose the coordination between the two main cameras which would have been the whole point of changing software (I do appreciate that PRISM can do a lot more than just acquiring images but there wasn't anything else that I needed).

I'm in the same boat, Mike.  There is an awful lot of effort gone in to the processing side of the software, but as a user of PI and PS these would be sat there doing nothing.  I don't process on my capture PC, as I'm sure is the case for very many imagers, so I'm not sure this is right model for me.

[Fellside]

In the unregistered trial it is possible to start two instances of Prism Pro. It did complain that there was on other instance already running but that was all. One on each screen. I only have two CCD`s. Started the Lodestar on one screen and then started Atik 383 on the other screen. This is just on the bench but I could independently control and take images on both ccd`s with no complaints from Prism.

This may not be the case if you were using a registered version.

I have stuck with testing the pro version  as that is the one I would go for. You can always upgrade to Advanced later.

RayD

Would you not have one install of Prism on your Scope/Capture PC (Eagle2) Then transfer data to your House, remote desktop, processing PC with second install (you can only have two PC install`s of Prism) of Prism and PI, PS etc.

Graham

 

[RayD]

19 minutes ago, Fellside said:

RayD

Would you not have one install of Prism on your Scope/Capture PC (Eagle2) Then transfer data to your House, remote desktop, processing PC with second install (you can only have two PC install`s of Prism) of Prism and PI, PS etc.

Graham

Yes that's what I do at the moment with SGP, Graham, via a small Samsung SSD.  Problem for me is warranting the additional costs for all the processing bits when I won't use them.  It's a very extensive package, but I wonder if the additional cost is due to the processing bits as I suppose I was hoping to find something spectacular which it did that I can't do with SGP.

I would love to see this updated a bit (Hamza notes it was conceived in the 90's, and to me feels like it is still there a bit from a GUI perspective) and then split in to two separate options, with one being capture only, and another being the full package for those wanting all the processing bits.

[Eyeheartmono]

I know this was asked already but is it possible to use PHD2 with prism, I know prism has a built in auto guiding software but unfortunately it does not work with my Old DSI-II while PhD2 does.

[Fellside]

9 hours ago, Eyeheartmono said:

I know this was asked already but is it possible to use PHD2 with prism, I know prism has a built in auto guiding software but unfortunately it does not work with my Old DSI-II while PhD2 does.

You can of course guide with PHD2, but it will not interact with Prism. Prism is designed to not require external software. I haven't got access to my Observatory PC right now. Is there a native DSI driver in Prism? Is there a Ascom driver available? I had problems with a Lodestar CCD guide camera and changing the driver in the control panel sort the problem.

I found this in the Prism French forum. (view in Chrome) So the DSI does (or did) seem to work with Prism. The guy had access to the camera and its controls.

http://www.prism-astro.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2163&p=11797&hilit=DSI+2#p11797

I found the Prism guider worked very well once setup. Overall Prism works well. Saying that I have moved on to using Voyager now.

Hope you get sorted.

Graham

 

[Eyeheartmono]

13 hours ago, Fellside said:

You can of course guide with PHD2, but it will not interact with Prism. Prism is designed to not require external software. I haven't got access to my Observatory PC right now. Is there a native DSI driver in Prism? Is there a Ascom driver available? I had problems with a Lodestar CCD guide camera and changing the driver in the control panel sort the problem.

I found this in the Prism French forum. (view in Chrome) So the DSI does (or did) seem to work with Prism. The guy had access to the camera and its controls.

http://www.prism-astro.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2163&p=11797&hilit=DSI+2#p11797

I found the Prism guider worked very well once setup. Overall Prism works well. Saying that I have moved on to using Voyager now.

Hope you get sorted.

Graham

 

Ive been in contact with Hamza regarding this issue and he has been very helpful with me but we still could not get it working. The software has a built in driver for the DSI-III but I have the II. When I try to load that driver it just errors. Also this camera is so old it doesn't appear to have ascom drivers. Ive basically given up on that camera as it was not a big loss as I got it for free but still it would be nice if I could have got it working. I will take a look at that website and see if I can find  any more answers. Thanks