ZWO Software

[woodsie]

Advice Needed

I recently swiched over to CMOS using 183MM pro and 120 mini guide camera .

I installed a new windows 10 Pro stick computer and all the drivers required by ZWO both the cameras worked ok but the installation with the stick as a whole was very flaky. Since its a remote set up this was obviously not good enough'

I reverted to a previously used W7 Pro computer which overall is better but the cameras dont connect properly in SGP and PHD2 cannot see the guide cam. I checked and reinstalled all the drivers and the sit is the same

Any ideas

Peter

[Dr_Ju_ju]

Have you tried the Ascom drivers for the cameras & not the native drivers ?? and as you're using Win10 have you disabled the USB sleep modes etc.... 

[woodsie]

Hi Brown Dwarfe

I am back on W& where the problem is and I am using the ASCOM drivers

Peter

[Skyline]

I do wish ZWO bring out a dedicated piece of software for imaging capture for their dedicated cooled astro cameras, similar o what Atik offers. APT is getting on my nerves.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Skyline

[david_taurus83]

7 minutes ago, Skyline said:

I do wish ZWO bring out a dedicated piece of software for imaging capture for their dedicated cooled astro cameras, similar o what Atik offers. APT is getting on my nerves.

I've never had an issue with APT. I keep coming back to it after trying others. It's a bit clunky, needs a lot of manual input but it works..

Any issues I've had with ZWO cameras has been USB issues. USB2 and USB3 didnt work well for me. Until I switched everything to USB3, cameras and PC, then it all worked fine.

[Skyline]

Yes clunky - That's the word.

[Dr_Ju_ju]

If you want to only take images, have you tried ASICap or ASIStudio....

[noah4x4]

The ASI 133MM is a 5496 x 3672 resolution USB 3.0 camera generating huge file sizes. My guess is that your stick computer simply isn't up to the job.

A Win7 computer is likely to be better as unlike Win 10 it doesn't  steal system resources when it starts to choke. Windows 10 is greedy, and that is why all in one box solutions tend to run Linux. So what do you need?

My 16 megapixel Atik Horizon camera crawled when using a seventh generation i5 processor and crashed when I added graphics intensive Celestron CPWI. I increased RAM to 8 Gb and the crashes stopped, but the lag didn't. It wasn't until I embraced an eight generation i7 processor and 16Gb RAM did I enjoy the performance desired. 

Stick computers will work with (say) low resolution CCD, or with DSLRs that have internal storage solutions, but with large sensor high resolution CMOS you generally  need far more computing and RAM ooomph, notably with Windows 10.

 

Edited March 18, 2020 by noah4x4

[woodsie]

Hi Proto Star

Thanks for the helpful reply

 

woodsie

[Skyline]

On 18/03/2020 at 17:00, Dr_Ju_ju said:

If you want to only take images, have you tried ASICap or ASIStudio....

I don't think ASICap is used for dso imaging I have look at ASIStudio.

[woodsie]

Hi Proto Star

I have tried ASI studio and yes it works ok but Its a remote obs so I need SGP ect. I took you advice and have bought refurbished desktop with i5 and 16 meg ram

woodsie

[Cornelius Varley]

On 23/03/2020 at 08:51, woodsie said:

Hi Proto Star

You should use the persons username when addressing them. "Proto Star" is a members ranking not their name

[2STAR]

I have tried ASICap, ASIlive, easy peasy, anyone using/tried ASIimage (DSO), if so what is your workflow please, a lack of instructions is frustrating for someone wishing to image for post processing to improve their efforts, at the moment i do EAA but would like to have a go at imaging with this software.

regards

eric  

[PeterCPC]

I would say that you connect the camera, get the image focused, try some exposures and check the histogram then simply set up an image run and make sure the folder is set up to save to. Pretty much what you would do in Sharpcap. I am yet to use it myself.

Peter