Risingcam IMX571 not a gamble?

[tomato]

I do notice that the very first frame captured in the session is always odd, very few stars visible, but after that the next and subsequent frames are ok. I presume the sensor is being reset or ‘flushed’ by the software.

[AmritNZ]

On 09/10/2022 at 08:48, Phillyo said:

Good evening all.

So, I've been having some issues with vignetting using the Risingcam on my Samyang, which surprised me as it's a camera lens designed for full frame cameras. Anyway, I've just done the Sharpcap sensor analysis and I noticed that there seemed to be a bit of vignetting directly from the sensor. So I've just ran the Flat Wizard in NINA and strangely my camera sensor has a vignette even when NOT connected to any lens/telescope. Is this normal? I'd have thought it should be designed without any kind of vignette if it isn't connected to anything? Can anyone else perhaps check or tell me if they have the same issue please?

Thank you.

not to worry, this is a property of the lens more than the camera. assuming you have the samyang 135mm f2, i have tried it at f2 and also get some pretty strong vignettes even when cropping my full frame camera to apsc size. it gets a lot better at around f4, not so much worried about the vignette but moreso the quality of the corner stars. 

[msacco]

Hey everyone.

Sorry I didn't follow the whole 7 pages of the thread.
I'm thinking of getting the MC version of this Touptek/RisingCam, and would love to hear some about the general idea with this camera.

Basically, I think the pros are quite obvious, mostly the price.
Are there any cons compared to ZWO in terms of performance? In other words, are there any reasons not to buy this camera?

Thanks.

[pipnina]

1 hour ago, msacco said:

Hey everyone.

Sorry I didn't follow the whole 7 pages of the thread.
I'm thinking of getting the MC version of this Touptek/RisingCam, and would love to hear some about the general idea with this camera.

Basically, I think the pros are quite obvious, mostly the price.
Are there any cons compared to ZWO in terms of performance? In other words, are there any reasons not to buy this camera?

Thanks.

I don't know how many people own the ZWO AND the RisingCam version to perform a direct comparison.

I might suggest that build quality is likely to be better and the level of support you get from the ZWO version is far superior as well.

Example: My RisingCam's USB hub isn't realiable. My ZWO EAF and EFW will cut out constantly but people with ZWO cameras seemed to think I was mad when I suggested camera USB hubs in general were bad... So in likelihood mine is just a dud with no way to get a refund or replacement or repair! If I bought a ZWO version I could return / replace.

On that same vane, if you buy a ZWO 2600MC you can make use of the FLO 30 day no-question return, get support etc.

I think there is also a difference between how gain is managed. I think (think!) on the ZWO you get a single gain slider and above 100 gain you switch to High-gain mode, whereas below that you run in Low-gain mode.

Meanwhile on my RisingCam I don't know WHAT is going on with that setting, I just picked gain 100, gain ratio of 1, and high/low threshold of 100. Who knows what it's doing?!

 

[AmritNZ]

8 hours ago, pipnina said:

I don't know how many people own the ZWO AND the RisingCam version to perform a direct comparison.

I might suggest that build quality is likely to be better and the level of support you get from the ZWO version is far superior as well.

Example: My RisingCam's USB hub isn't realiable. My ZWO EAF and EFW will cut out constantly but people with ZWO cameras seemed to think I was mad when I suggested camera USB hubs in general were bad... So in likelihood mine is just a dud with no way to get a refund or replacement or repair! If I bought a ZWO version I could return / replace.

On that same vane, if you buy a ZWO 2600MC you can make use of the FLO 30 day no-question return, get support etc.

I think there is also a difference between how gain is managed. I think (think!) on the ZWO you get a single gain slider and above 100 gain you switch to High-gain mode, whereas below that you run in Low-gain mode.

Meanwhile on my RisingCam I don't know WHAT is going on with that setting, I just picked gain 100, gain ratio of 1, and high/low threshold of 100. Who knows what it's doing?!

 

for clarity sake, have you officially reported the usb hub issue to RisingCam and tried to get it serviced under warranty? did they deny return/replacement, or are there assumptions about? i'm only asking this as there was someone else on another forum that assumed because it is off Aliexpress that it had no support. they do come with a 1 year warranty and the team are fairly responsive albeit it goes back to China rather than a local service centre (which I believe ZWO will have in USA/UK) - here in NZ everything goes away overseas so doesn't bother me whether it's to China or to USA but it might be a con for those in other countries, as one way would be faster than the other.

 

gain management - correct, high gain mode has a slider for Risingcam. in reality, it's mostly pointless using either camera on any inbetween settings, with this sensor you just trigger HCG, find your respective offset (around 300 is good with the risingcam) and leave it at that. in practice, no one really switches between the modes, you just change your exposure time instead.

 

10 hours ago, msacco said:

Hey everyone.

Sorry I didn't follow the whole 7 pages of the thread.
I'm thinking of getting the MC version of this Touptek/RisingCam, and would love to hear some about the general idea with this camera.

Basically, I think the pros are quite obvious, mostly the price.
Are there any cons compared to ZWO in terms of performance? In other words, are there any reasons not to buy this camera?

Thanks.

 

after about a year of ownership, this was the pros/cons i had put into another thread.

 

pros

• great price
• great service
• results are competitive and exactly as expected/advertised
• cooler works well. quickly and quietly
• drivers work well and natively in many suites, including modern ones like nina.
• has usb hub for convenience
• unlike some other brands, the cooler doesn't spin up soon as you power it on. only after you connect it via your imaging suite. so you can pre-connect it eg. before going out for dinner or something and then set up via your automation to have that cooler start only at the necessary time. 

 

cons

• you lose some backfocus compared with zwo and qhy model, important for those using OAG in particular 
• some vignette due to additional space between filter wheel and sensor, extra 5mm compared with ZWO / qhy system which can bolt on. the vignette is manageable with flats
• cannot easily mount camera lenses on to it with a mono setup unless you get expensive custom made adaptors. lots easier with qhy/zwo (eg. the samyang 135mm f2.0 is a common combo with filter wheel etc)
• dew heater doesn't cover the window, so in humid climates, dews up. easy fix but worth noting to order the zwo dew heater strip
• usb hub isn't well shielded but good enough for filter wheel / guide camera which covers most peoples use case. for 5v focuser i would prefer to connect that to a powered usb hub to avoid unwanted noise issues with the camera.

[msacco]

8 hours ago, pipnina said:

I don't know how many people own the ZWO AND the RisingCam version to perform a direct comparison.

I might suggest that build quality is likely to be better and the level of support you get from the ZWO version is far superior as well.

Example: My RisingCam's USB hub isn't realiable. My ZWO EAF and EFW will cut out constantly but people with ZWO cameras seemed to think I was mad when I suggested camera USB hubs in general were bad... So in likelihood mine is just a dud with no way to get a refund or replacement or repair! If I bought a ZWO version I could return / replace.

On that same vane, if you buy a ZWO 2600MC you can make use of the FLO 30 day no-question return, get support etc.

I think there is also a difference between how gain is managed. I think (think!) on the ZWO you get a single gain slider and above 100 gain you switch to High-gain mode, whereas below that you run in Low-gain mode.

Meanwhile on my RisingCam I don't know WHAT is going on with that setting, I just picked gain 100, gain ratio of 1, and high/low threshold of 100. Who knows what it's doing?!

 

I actually heard from multiple people that their support was good and they had a replacement for issues they had from the aliexpress vendor.
Where did you buy the camera from? While it's more of a gamble, you should have 3 years warranty for it, whether it's by the dealer or the company itself as RisingCam or Touptek, even though there's no guarantee after all.

As for gain, it seems to be just a different way to handle it by the drivers, either by a gain slider that changes from LGM to HGM, or a direct selection of that.

Also wondering about your hub issues, could it be the USB cables themselves?

Thanks.

[ONIKKINEN]

10 hours ago, msacco said:

Are there any cons compared to ZWO in terms of performance? In other words, are there any reasons not to buy this camera?

Thanks.

I can think of one real world difference between the touptek one and others, the touptek one has a weak sensor window heater that will fog up if the cooler is used too much in very humid conditions. Solution to this problem is to cool down less, like to -10 only even if the cooler could do better, or buy a ZWO sensor window heater that is glued to the camera body itself around the flange and so fix the problem that way. You could buy 30 of the tack-on sensor window heaters for the price difference still, so hardly a game changer in terms of pros and cons.

As for the Gain and offset confusion, this is in my opinion a complete non issue and there doesn't need to be confusion about it. Set the camera to high conversion gain mode and its lowest gain to use the camera in a similar way as ZWO users would use at their gain 100. Offset in mine was 768 by default and i have just left it at that. No reason to change it really. The 300 offset mentioned above is too low for my camera and i will get 0 value pixels in bias frames every time, but there may be differences in cameras here. This is not a hill to die on however and you could set the offset to 1000 if you want to and not notice anything in your images, since the camera has the full 16-bit range of ADUs to play with (65536).

TLDR: no worries, good camera.

[msacco]

5 minutes ago, AmritNZ said:

for clarity sake, have you officially reported the usb hub issue to RisingCam and tried to get it serviced under warranty? did they deny return/replacement, or are there assumptions about? i'm only asking this as there was someone else on another forum that assumed because it is off Aliexpress that it had no support. they do come with a 1 year warranty and the team are fairly responsive albeit it goes back to China rather than a local service centre (which I believe ZWO will have in USA/UK) - here in NZ everything goes away overseas so doesn't bother me whether it's to China or to USA but it might be a con for those in other countries, as one way would be faster than the other.

 

gain management - correct, high gain mode has a slider for Risingcam. in reality, it's mostly pointless using either camera on any inbetween settings, with this sensor you just trigger HCG, find your respective offset (around 300 is good with the risingcam) and leave it at that. in practice, no one really switches between the modes, you just change your exposure time instead.

 

 

after about a year of ownership, this was the pros/cons i had put into another thread.

 

pros

• great price
• great service
• results are competitive and exactly as expected/advertised
• cooler works well. quickly and quietly
• drivers work well and natively in many suites, including modern ones like nina.
• has usb hub for convenience
• unlike some other brands, the cooler doesn't spin up soon as you power it on. only after you connect it via your imaging suite. so you can pre-connect it eg. before going out for dinner or something and then set up via your automation to have that cooler start only at the necessary time. 

 

cons

• you lose some backfocus compared with zwo and qhy model, important for those using OAG in particular 
• some vignette due to additional space between filter wheel and sensor, extra 5mm compared with ZWO / qhy system which can bolt on. the vignette is manageable with flats
• cannot easily mount camera lenses on to it with a mono setup unless you get expensive custom made adaptors. lots easier with qhy/zwo (eg. the samyang 135mm f2.0 is a common combo with filter wheel etc)
• dew heater doesn't cover the window, so in humid climates, dews up. easy fix but worth noting to order the zwo dew heater strip
• usb hub isn't well shielded but good enough for filter wheel / guide camera which covers most peoples use case. for 5v focuser i would prefer to connect that to a powered usb hub to avoid unwanted noise issues with the camera.

Thanks a lot for the detailed comment.

Why do you lose backfocus? You mean that you can't bolt the OAG? I don't use any either way.
I already own the 2600MM but I don't bolt the filter wheel anyway, I have no vignetting regardless, and plan on getting the RisingCam OSC version, so filter wheel/mono is not an issue here I believe. Can you use the regular camera lens ZWO adapter with the RisingCam? Both should be M42 female I believe, and 17.5mm backfocus too.

About the dew heater, what do you mean that it doesn't cover the window? I already own the ZWO dew heater strip tbh, but won't it ruin the sealing if I open to install that? Or you can just install it to the window without opening the sealing chamber?
The USB hub sounds like it could actually be the most annoying part, I do use the ZWO 5V focuser, and while it shouldn't be a big deal for me as I have my mini PC on top of my scope and can wire it directly, I don't know when I might need it, but for a different of nearly $1000, that's a reasonable thing I guess.

Thanks a lot for the list, the only 2 points that I think should be relevant for me are the dew as it is quite humid here, and the USB hub which could be a bit more annoying but not a big deal regardless.

[msacco]

27 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

I can think of one real world difference between the touptek one and others, the touptek one has a weak sensor window heater that will fog up if the cooler is used too much in very humid conditions. Solution to this problem is to cool down less, like to -10 only even if the cooler could do better, or buy a ZWO sensor window heater that is glued to the camera body itself around the flange and so fix the problem that way. You could buy 30 of the tack-on sensor window heaters for the price difference still, so hardly a game changer in terms of pros and cons.

As for the Gain and offset confusion, this is in my opinion a complete non issue and there doesn't need to be confusion about it. Set the camera to high conversion gain mode and its lowest gain to use the camera in a similar way as ZWO users would use at their gain 100. Offset in mine was 768 by default and i have just left it at that. No reason to change it really. The 300 offset mentioned above is too low for my camera and i will get 0 value pixels in bias frames every time, but there may be differences in cameras here. This is not a hill to die on however and you could set the offset to 1000 if you want to and not notice anything in your images, since the camera has the full 16-bit range of ADUs to play with (65536).

TLDR: no worries, good camera.

The good part is that I already own one as I had issues with my ASI071MC Pro at the beginning, but the issue was actually dew on the sensor and not on the protective window, so I bought it and never used it, which I can if I'll need it ^^

I also agree that Gain and Offset shouldn't really be a confusion, it might be a bit more trial and error rather than the common 100/50 by ZWO, but once you figure it out it should all be good.
So far I feel pretty positive about it, for a $1000 difference I don't see many things I'll need to compromise on, so that's very nice

Thanks.

[pipnina]

To be honest I was unaware that they offered a good refurbish policy.

That said I am getting around the lack of usb port issue by using a dedicated hub anyway so I won't be bothered to send it away for a month.

Re: the sensor window issue. I turn the heater on (for whatever good it does) and run at -5c, no issues at that temp but I did see problems at -10c, though it took a few hours to start setting in. This is in humid Devon (regularly 90% towards the end of a night, even worse in summer)

[msacco]

1 hour ago, pipnina said:

To be honest I was unaware that they offered a good refurbish policy.

That said I am getting around the lack of usb port issue by using a dedicated hub anyway so I won't be bothered to send it away for a month.

Re: the sensor window issue. I turn the heater on (for whatever good it does) and run at -5c, no issues at that temp but I did see problems at -10c, though it took a few hours to start setting in. This is in humid Devon (regularly 90% towards the end of a night, even worse in summer)

It's a rather minor issue so probably not worth the headache, but generally it seems like there is support on that matter.

Seems like the dew can be fixed with the ZWO heat strip, so that's also not much of an issue I guess.
Did someone here installed it already? It is surely possible to install without opening the sealed chamber?

Thanks.

[ONIKKINEN]

55 minutes ago, msacco said:

It's a rather minor issue so probably not worth the headache, but generally it seems like there is support on that matter.

Seems like the dew can be fixed with the ZWO heat strip, so that's also not much of an issue I guess.
Did someone here installed it already? It is surely possible to install without opening the sealed chamber?

Thanks.

Its just glued to the telescope facing side of the camera body, 5 minute effort at best and completely reversible should you want to remove it. I have one, but have not needed to use it yet.

By the way you dont want to open up the camera body, that may saturate the dessicant that is integrated into the sensor chamber. There is a screw that says "DO NOT OPEN" (that i opened, of course) on the side of the camera that opens up the sensor chamber. You could put a screwed in dessicant tube there if you manage to saturate the integrated ones but im not aware of a case where that happened, but the option exists. The Omegon version of the ToupTek 571 comes with a dessicant tube btw where as the Rising Cam does not.

[msacco]

30 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Its just glued to the telescope facing side of the camera body, 5 minute effort at best and completely reversible should you want to remove it. I have one, but have not needed to use it yet.

By the way you dont want to open up the camera body, that may saturate the dessicant that is integrated into the sensor chamber. There is a screw that says "DO NOT OPEN" (that i opened, of course) on the side of the camera that opens up the sensor chamber. You could put a screwed in dessicant tube there if you manage to saturate the integrated ones but im not aware of a case where that happened, but the option exists. The Omegon version of the ToupTek 571 comes with a dessicant tube btw where as the Rising Cam does not.

Right, I completely forgot how this strip works ^^

So that's easy enough to use in case needed.

And yep that's why I verified it doesn't require opening up the sealed chamber

Can you use that dessicant tube on any version? Or it only exists on the omegon ones?

[ONIKKINEN]

18 minutes ago, msacco said:

Right, I completely forgot how this strip works ^^

So that's easy enough to use in case needed.

And yep that's why I verified it doesn't require opening up the sealed chamber

Can you use that dessicant tube on any version? Or it only exists on the omegon ones?

You could try if it fits, but i assume that is what the hole is for. You could also ask Rising cam if that is the case, but im pretty sure they would tell you to keep it sealed.

[msacco]

Just now, ONIKKINEN said:

You could try if it fits, but i assume that is what the hole is for. You could also ask Rising cam if that is the case, but im pretty sure they would tell you to keep it sealed.

Yeah that's usually the case with vendors, they don't like that, but DIY and messing with stuff is part of the deal in this hobby 😆

But guess if it ain't broken don't fix it, so while it's not an issue, that's ok.

Thanks! I'll hopefully buy this soon.

[gorann]

Hi all,

I am lazy so instead of reading this whole thread, I just wonder if some of you could tell me what software you are using to run your Touptek/Risingcam/Omegon 571 cameras. Tonight I started using my Omegon veTec571 (color) and thought I could run it with SharpCap, but it did not recognize it and after reading up slightly it seems that it can just run it as an ASCOM camera with limited success (https://forums.sharpcap.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=5751). So right now I use the Omegon software than does not even let me set an offset. Interestingly, when I turned on the cooler it went down to -16°C even if I had set it to -10°C, but then slowly got up to -10°C. A bit odd. With my ASI2600MC and QHY268M software is not a problem.

[Stuart1971]

17 minutes ago, gorann said:

Hi all,

I am lazy so instead of reading this whole thread, I just wonder if some of you could tell me what software you are using to run your Touptek/Risingcam/Omegon 571 cameras. Tonight I started using my Omegon veTec571 (color) and thought I could run it with SharpCap, but it did not recognize it and after reading up slightly it seems that it can just run it as an ASCOM camera with limited success (https://forums.sharpcap.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=5751). So right now I use the Omegon software than does not even let me set an offset. Interestingly, when I turned on the cooler it went down to -16°C even if I had set it to -10°C, but then slowly got up to -10°C. A bit odd. With my ASI2600MC and QHY268M software is not a problem.

That camera runs perfectly with NINA…👍🏻

[ONIKKINEN]

Sharpcap 4.something (newest version) with the ascom driver and NINA with both native and ASCOM. I run native driver with NINA.

[TareqPhoto]

Yesterday i was testing the camera and i noticed that the ASCOM driver now is changed, i mean before maybe last year or almost beginning of this year with ASCOM driver i can only start Gain at 100 up to whatever, but yesterday i was able to start from 0 up to 100 only, so not sure if it is same thing or not, also with Dark Level not sure if this is same as Offset the values are from 0 to 10000, very strange, anyway, i chose whatever settings as i was only testing after so long time purchase without test, test for the scope too and filter and even wifi adapter connected to the mount, but i had all kind of issues this year because of my laptop and power and cables, even my ZWO E filter wheel 5x1.25" USB port just damaged.

I will not give up this camera no matter what will happen, i am tired to keep paying more for brands names or even what is calling "SERVICES" thing, as i live overseas and i have a lot of gear now so far then i really don't need that service after buy, many of my gear already passed or will pass 1 year in no time, so one way or another i will pay for shipping and service if something happen later anyway, then i don't need to pay more initially, i really respect ToupTek/RisingCam for making this available for those lower budget people, i can't just buy like 4-6 cooled cameras all from ZWO/QHY, i have 1 from ZWO and 2 from QHY already, so it is time for me to give a chance another brands/manufacturers. 

 

[gorann]

11 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

That camera runs perfectly with NINA…👍🏻

Thanks Stuart!

I will download NINA. What gain & offset settings do you recommend? With my ASI2600 I always use gain 100 (where HCG is engaged) and offset 30, so I would like something corresponding to that.

[Stuart1971]

19 minutes ago, gorann said:

Thanks Stuart!

I will download NINA. What gain & offset settings do you recommend? With my ASI2600 I always use gain 100 (where HCG is engaged) and offset 30, so I would like something corresponding to that.

Can’t help with that I’m afraid, as I have the QHY version, but I do spend a lot of time on the NINA discord, and the NINA author uses the RisingCam IMX571 cameras, so that’s how I know they work perfectly…👍🏻

So you could ask on there, here is an invite….

https://discord.gg/nighttime-imaging

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Stuart1971

[ONIKKINEN]

2 hours ago, gorann said:

Thanks Stuart!

I will download NINA. What gain & offset settings do you recommend? With my ASI2600 I always use gain 100 (where HCG is engaged) and offset 30, so I would like something corresponding to that.

HCG mode on and gain 100 with the native driver is the same as ZWO gain 100. Full well around 16k and a gain factor of 0.25e/ADU. Note that the ascom driver has a different scale, from 0-100 where as the native is 100-10 000. But minimum gain with HCG mode with either is ZWO 100 equivalent.

I recommend 700 offset at least, at least my unit would have 0 value pixels if its much lower. If yours has 768 by default like mine was, just leave it at that.

[gorann]

9 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

HCG mode on and gain 100 with the native driver is the same as ZWO gain 100. Full well around 16k and a gain factor of 0.25e/ADU. Note that the ascom driver has a different scale, from 0-100 where as the native is 100-10 000. But minimum gain with HCG mode with either is ZWO 100 equivalent.

I recommend 700 offset at least, at least my unit would have 0 value pixels if its much lower. If yours has 768 by default like mine was, just leave it at that.

Thanks a lot! Then 100 and 700 it will be. Got it to work with NINA. I never used NINA before so now I just have to find out some basics, like how I chose the folder for saving images.

[scotty38]

11 minutes ago, gorann said:

Thanks a lot! Then 100 and 700 it will be. Got it to work with NINA. I never used NINA before so now I just have to find out some basics, like how I chose the folder for saving images.

You can use a whole load of variables including for directory names, here's mine as an example:

[ONIKKINEN]

11 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

You can use a whole load of variables including for directory names, here's mine as an example:

Really like this feature in NINA too.

Here is what my files look like:

YYYY-MM-DD - Time - exposure - number in sequence - Guide error in RMS arcseconds during the exposure - Target name - HFR in pixels - number of stars

Its easy to remove clearly outlying subs from hundreds by just glancing at the file names. Saves a lot of time in the end when picking and choosing the best quality subs for a stack.

Edited October 12, 2022 by ONIKKINEN