New gear new problems

[Davey-T]

I've been using a Skyris 274 USB3 mono camera on the LS60 for a few years to capture a full disc but it is fixed at 20fps max so I bought a ZWO178mm from FLO hoping to get faster frame rate.

First fly in the ointment I had to download the latest version of Firecapture which looks nothing like the old version, the default Sun setting had a strange letter box fov and the hints that pop up when you hover over a button are white on pale grey  so impossible to read.

So muddled around and set the capture folder got a full solar disc on screen and a capture rate of 9fps 

All this in gaps between the clouds so could be a while before I produce an image not that there's anything to see, Sun looks devoid of any activity.

Dave

 

[Ibbo!]

You may need to run it with a ROI to get a higher frame rate or indeed a new laptop with a SSD.

 

Good luck.

[knobby]

The Skyris is 2 MP whereas the ZWO is 6 MP that's a lot more data to squeeze through the USB ...

Try smaller ROI or USB 3 and maybe SSD

 

[Ibbo!]

Just as an example with the Chameleon I can get 58 fps for a full disc with the I5 Dell small form factor PC and 178fps for those Venus shots with smaller ROI but only 4 fps with the panosonic laptop.

With the more modern lappy I can get about 38 fps but it starts buffering after about 30 secs of capturing.

[symmetal]

I have a Celeron mini PC by the solar scope with an 178MM for imaging and the biggest boost was getting an SSD for it. At 4Gb of RAM I could only manage about 5 seconds at about 20fps full frame before it buffered to disk (eMMC) and the frame rate died. Fitting a 256GB SSD everything runs much faster and writing to disk is almost as fast as writing to RAM so can easily record for 2 mins or more full frame at about 34 fps. (USB3). 

In Firecapture I select the two window mode on the general setup page and minimize the capture preview window before capturing. This saves it having to update the preview screen and gives a boost in fps. You can select a colour 'skin' for the program which may help with the readability. 

Alan

[Davey-T]

2 hours ago, Ibbo! said:

You may need to run it with a ROI to get a higher frame rate or indeed a new laptop with a SSD.

 

Good luck.

Can't use ROI as the whole point is to get a full disc, will try it on another laptop with SSD.

Dave

[Davey-T]

1 hour ago, symmetal said:

At 4Gb of RAM I could only manage about 5 seconds at about 20fps full frame before it buffered to disk

The Skyris ran at 20fps on the same laptop ?

Dave

[symmetal]

2 hours ago, Davey-T said:

The Skyris ran at 20fps on the same laptop ?

Dave

The ASI178 has three times the data to download for a full frame which would equate to 7 fps, everything else being equal. 

Another useful option is to increase the heap size ( main memory) available for Firecapture to grab for use. It's on the Firecapture 'System General' config page. I forgot to say the 5 secs of full frame was with the default heap size which is around 1GB for the program allowing about 600MB for storing captures. I allocated 2GB which gave 1600MB for captures which allowed 15-20 secs.

I also have the 'Use RAM buffer' option ticked. This gives an easier to use display of frames left available for grabbing while capturing. I'm not sure if it has any effect on fps. After increasing the heap size and restarting, allocate about heap size - 512MB  of heap size to RAM buffer and click the test button to confirm it's available for the RAM buffer. If you allocate too much it will automatically truncate it but you can squeeze a few hundred MB into the RAM buffer by fiddling with the allocation amount in small amounts.  If you have 8GB of main memory you can allocate 5GB or so to the heap.

As in my last post a SSD makes the memory allocation less important as it's almost as fast as RAM.

Alan

[Davey-T]

Tried to extract Firecapture on a laptop with SSD and get this message ?

Dave

[newbie alert]

I use a Skyris 236m..think it's usb 3.. with the biggest frame I'm getting about the same rate, if I use a smaller frame I get a faster rate so i mosaic..

Just a thought are you using the 2m cable or a longer one as I think I read that beyond a certain length it's slower to transfer the data..

[Davey-T]

Had a play with the settings and managed 30fps, fitted a .5 f/r but couldn't get focus with the supplied nose piece, found an old one and cut it down, got focus and using a smaller ROI I can get 50 fps so all is good I think, been doing it between showers so need a bigger gap in the clouds to try it.

Dave

[symmetal]

See you're getting there Dave. 

As 'newbie' says a cable longer than 2m will probably have a significant effect on the data rate. I initially tried mine on a 5m USB3 and it was hopeless with low frame rates and the camera dropping connection every few seconds. Another tweak is to check what the 'USB traffic' is set to in Firecapture. In the Camera 'Control' section of the left panel click on the 'More' icon with the cogwheel and. I can have it at 100% but with a longer cable or slower computer you may suffer dropped frames or no picture. Set it as high as you can before you get problems.

If you do try a mosaic the reduction in height of the ROI has a bigger effect on improving framerate than a reduction in width. You could try a two panel mosaic, top half and bottom half still keeping the width large enough to capture the whole Sun. Also using a 'square' region of interest just large enough to capture the whole disk will probably give you a few more fps compared to just using the whole sensor. That of course depends on how good your tracking is for the recording not to let it drift out of frame. 

Alan

 

[Davey-T]

2 hours ago, symmetal said:

See you're getting there Dave

Thanks Alan, I'm using the 2 meter cable that came with the camera, the Sun just fits height wise in the 2080 but curiously if I alter the width in Firecapture and even though it still says 2080 as the height in the actual view on screen the Sun no longer fits in the height.

I understand that the Sun alters in size depending on Earths orbit but not sure if this makes a significant difference to the captured image.

Tracking is good having just bought a SW SolarQuest mount which does a really good job of keeping the Sun centred in the FOV.

Dave

[symmetal]

Odd that the ROI height seems to change on its own Dave. Are you using the drag box to define the size or entering the values in the ROI boxes. If you change the values manually you have to click the ROI button again for it to actually update.

I see you like the SolarQuest mount. It seems a lot easier to set up and get tracking compared to the EQ3 Pro I currently use which I have to nudge to centre the view every 5 mins as it's only roughly aligned. Now you've got me considering getting one.  Have you worked out how long you can record for before image rotation has to be taken into account?

Alan

[Davey-T]

35 minutes ago, symmetal said:

Have you worked out how long you can record for before image rotation has to be taken into account?

Not yet, haven't had any long clear skies, it's certainly a handy little mount, carries the LS60DS no trouble, there was one for sale on here about half price the week after I bought it 

Yet clicked the ROI and saved it as a custom ROI, still trying to get my head round the latest version of Firecapture 

Dave