Decision Made....

[David Smith]

After a weekend of glorious sunshine and careful consideration I finally pulled the trigger on the new solar imaging camera.

 

 

 

Consequently it's now raining cats and dogs here and I imagine I will have to pay for this one with many similar days. My apologies to all those who must suffer the consequences with me.

Plugged it into the laptop and all seems to work with Sharpcap. FPS around 35 at full frame 8 bit capture and about 25 in 16 bit mode but that just using the supplied lens in a brightly lit room. Looking forward to trying it out properly on the Sun at some point in the future.

 

 

[Freddie]

Nice new cam there David. You must have been limited by exposure duration as I would expect 60fps at 8 bit.

[xtreemchaos]

now dont that feel better ?, well done id like one myself  "note to myself " "go on charl ya know you want too" . charl.

[David Smith]

29 minutes ago, Freddie said:

Nice new cam there David. You must have been limited by exposure duration as I would expect 60fps at 8 bit.

Thanks Freddie. I suspect a new laptop may not be far away. My Lenovo G500 is a not-very-fast celeron version which I suspect may be a limiting factor.

 

[David Smith]

30 minutes ago, xtreemchaos said:

now dont that feel better ?, well done id like one myself  "note to myself " "go on charl ya know you want too" . charl.

No regrets so far Charl!

[JamesF]

18 minutes ago, David Smith said:

Thanks Freddie. I suspect a new laptop may not be far away. My Lenovo G500 is a not-very-fast celeron version which I suspect may be a limiting factor.

 

Perhaps an SSD might help?  Recording mono shouldn't really be very CPU intensive, but being able to shunt data onto the disk faster might be useful?

James

[David Smith]

4 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Perhaps an SSD might help?  Recording mono shouldn't really be very CPU intensive, but being able to shunt data onto the disk faster might be useful?

James

A USB3 external ssd may be an option i suppose?

Just tried it with OACapture 1.4 which seems to work well. 96 FPS actual @ 8bit full frame but it was dropping frames left, right and center. 23FPS actual @ 16 bit seemed more stable.

[JamesF]

1 minute ago, David Smith said:

A USB3 external ssd may be an option i suppose?

Depends on your hardware I think.  You'd probably not want to stick the data on the same USB bus to go to the disk as was being used to get data from the camera.

James

[Freddie]

As James has said, it will be your disk holding you back.

I don't know if the capture software you have used does as well, but FireCapture allows buffering during capture so if the disk can't keep up, it buffers the data until the disk can catch up. Maybe worth a try.

[David Smith]

Something like this may be the better route then

https://www.ebuyer.com/749999-sandisk-ssd-plus-240gb-sata-iii-2-5-inch-ssd-sdssda-240g-g26

[David Smith]

Just now, Freddie said:

As James has said, it will be your disk holding you back.

I don't know if the capture software you have used does as well, but FireCapture allows buffering during capture so if the disk can't keep up, it buffers the data until the disk can catch up. Maybe worth a try.

Firecapture gave me 14 FPS in 8bit! Is there a "High Speed" option somewhere in Firecapture as there is in Sharpcap / OACapture? I couldn't see it but then haven't used FC much.

 

[Freddie]

It's in the camera control tab on the left

[JamesF]

2 minutes ago, David Smith said:

Something like this may be the better route then

https://www.ebuyer.com/749999-sandisk-ssd-plus-240gb-sata-iii-2-5-inch-ssd-sdssda-240g-g26

If you have an SATA disk in there at the moment then I'd have thought that should work.  If the interface isn't SATA-III then the disk should downgrade gracefully.  You just won't get the same throughput.

James

[David Smith]

Just now, JamesF said:

If you have an SATA disk in there at the moment then I'd have thought that should work.  If the interface isn't SATA-III then the disk should downgrade gracefully.  You just won't get the same throughput.

James

Thanks James, it's definitely a SATA disk (I had to replace the original about 12 months ago and remember that much) just not sure if it's II or III.

[Lowjiber]

Very nice, Dave.  Congratulations on the new cam.

I'm very interested in your thoughts on that cam.  It hasn't been out long enough for any solar reviewers to put anything out.  I use the ASI174 (have two of 'em), but the 178 looks pretty appealing.

Best of luck with the new gear!

Clear Skies

[Pete Presland]

Love the label  good luck with the new camera.

[David Smith]

9 hours ago, Lowjiber said:

Very nice, Dave.  Congratulations on the new cam.

I'm very interested in your thoughts on that cam.  It hasn't been out long enough for any solar reviewers to put anything out.  I use the ASI174 (have two of 'em), but the 178 looks pretty appealing.

Best of luck with the new gear!

Clear Skies

Thanks John. The 174 was that bit more expensive and the pixel size was that much larger making it less suitable for my particular setup, hence going with the 178. Will certainly post my results here over the coming weeks and months.