Help - Astroberry (KStars/EKOS) causing an artefact on subs

[dannybgoode]

No idea one this one.  I've been getting my rig ready for imaging again and have been testing everything out and run some bias frames and noticed a strange artefact about 2/3's of the way down the each sub frame.  It looks like a group of hot pixels and then a faint line running out from them across the whole sensor.  Sensor was cooled to -20 and I've never seen this before.  I've tried different exposures all the way from 1/1000s to 300s and the line is always there.  

Now, trying to rule things out I decided to install NINA not thinking it would make a difference. Err... I was wrong!  No artefact at all.  

Follows are two 3 images - the first is a 5s sub from Astroberry, the second a 5s sub from NINA and the third a stack of 250 1/1000s subs from Astroberry stacked so you can more clearly see the artefact.  Has anyone got any idea whatsoever what could be causing Astroberry to do this. 

Note the camera is an SX-674 running it on a Pi4 with a SanDisk Extreme SD card.

 

[wimvb]

Since you used NINA as well as astroberry, you clearly used different hardware as well. I've seen similar artefacts a long time ago. At that time they were caused by electrical interference, ie a hardware/cabling problem. Here the cause may be something else of course, but if I were you, I would at least check usb and power cables, and how they are routed. Even grounding issues can affect data transfer.

[7170]

Is your camera connected direct to the Pi4 or via a powered hub?

I believe your camera has a USB hub built in? If so it maybe gets its power from the computer USB line and not the 12v line, so it is maybe pulling just too much juice when going even if you are not using the hub.

If you have a powered USB hub try plugging the camera into that as it will eliminate the above issue as well as a possible bad power supply to the Pi itself.

I’ve seen similar line effects on old CCTV cameras where the voltage was a little too low, but not low enough for the camera to stop working fully.
 

[dannybgoode]

Thanks guys. Terry at SX has confirmed it looks to be some kind of data transfer/USB issue (superb service as always from him).

Everything is powered via and hooked to to the USB hub on a PowerBox Advance so there shouldn't be any issues with low voltage/current however I will run through a few alternate configurations to see if I can solve it. 

[dannybgoode]

Slowly working through various combinations and no amount of swapping and changing ports on the PPBA or Pi4, unplugging various bits of kit to remove possible sources of interference etc have made any difference.  I have since set the PPBA up with NINA and the camera works just fine in that configuration so we are left with something to do with either the Pi4, its SD card or Astroberry I think.  

I had to rule out the PPBA as the camera was working fine with Astroberry earlier in the year and the PPBA is the only thing that has changed however that does not seem to be the cause.

Got a few permutations to run through to try and get to the bottom of it.  The good news at least is it is not a sensor issue which was my original fear when I first saw the artefact.

[Stuart1971]

There is also one other thing that is different between the AB and NINA set ups, the driver, and I had this issue with Stellarmate and an SX H18 camera, and it was the driver, not reading the camera correctly, something to do with the “chunk size” in the driver, whatever that means….. this was sorted in the end by the Indi developer…so one more thing to consider….

[dannybgoode]

51 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

There is also one other thing that is different between the AB and NINA set ups, the driver, and I had this issue with Stellarmate and an SX H18 camera, and it was the driver, not reading the camera correctly, something to do with the “chunk size” in the driver, whatever that means….. this was sorted in the end by the Indi developer…so one more thing to consider….

Thanks Stuart - it is something to consider.  It was working however so will check if there has been a driver update.  Interestingly it works fine if I bin the image 2x also.  Will keep investigating...

[AstroKeith]

Almost certainly a USB issue.

Your camera is USB2 which was never designed for streaming large image files. It works when nothing else gets in the the way! Are you using the USB2 or USB3 ports on the RPi4? Is anything else plugged into the RPi USB ports? The Pi uses a different bus controller for the Usb2 and USB3 and so I would try using USB2 to the camera and leave the other USB2 empty, then USB3 to the AB

[dannybgoode]

2 minutes ago, AstroKeith said:

Almost certainly a USB issue.

Your camera is USB2 which was never designed for streaming large image files. It works when nothing else gets in the the way! Are you using the USB2 or USB3 ports on the RPi4? Is anything else plugged into the RPi USB ports? The Pi uses a different bus controller for the Usb2 and USB3 and so I would try using USB2 to the camera and leave the other USB2 empty, then USB3 to the AB

It was working fine before and USB2 can still easily handle the 5mb image files from my camera.  480mbits/s is more than enough for most applications.  Plus it works fine over USB2 with my PC at the moment also.  Don't forget USB3 is still pretty new and only the most recent cameras have it and there have not been significant issues with the many thousands of USB2 cameras out there.

I am using it via the PPBA but have tried connecting it directly to the Pi44 also.  Indeed earlier this year I only used it directly with the Pi and as I say it worked fine then.  I suspect a corrupt driver or SD card more than a USB issue at this stage however I am keeping all options open at this stage.

[AstroKeith]

Its not bit rate that is the issue usually with USB2 , its packet size. A USB2 driver would need a completely uninterrupted access to the bus to transfer such a file. A USB3 is happy to packet switch.

If both ends of the cable know what they are doing (ie the drivers) then all should be OK.

The arrival of USB3 (actually been around for years) means that many products have let the backwards compatibility slip. PPBA, ASIAIR & Eagle have all exhibited this issue. Any device that has only USB3 ports but supports USB2 is risky. Which is why I asked how you are connecting to the RPi4 which has dedicated ports and a split internal bus.

[dannybgoode]

Thing is it has been working absolutely fine for over a year so I do not think it is a USB issue as such.  I have tried it plugged into the Pi directly and the PPBA (which now has 2 dedicated USB2 sockets and 2 USB2/3 sockets) and have tried it in every port combination possible.  It also works just fine on my laptop into USB3 and my PC via USB2 and 3.  USB2 has been used for many many years to transfer far larger files than just a 5mb image file every few minutes.

All my cameras use USB2 - even my Sony RX10M4 uses USB2 and generates far larger image files and does not have an issue at all running on any port I plug it into.  Never had an issue before hence I suspect a corrupt driver or dying SD card more likely at the moment.

[dannybgoode]

I am almost certain now it is a driver issue.  I have completely flashed and re-installed Astroberry and even tried a different Pi4 and still the same.  Bizarrely if I plug the camera straight into the Pi4 the result is even worse as per the image below.  This is just the Pi4 and camera with a really simply EKOS profile for just the camera.  If I plug it back into the PPBA and take a sub through that then it reverts back to the lesser artefact but still unacceptable for imaging.  I have posted on the Indilib forum now as well to see if anyone has any ideas.

My Altair Astro 130M works fine as does my Sony RX10M4 so it does seem to be specifically related to how the SX674 is interacting with KSTARS/EKOS.  Ah well, gives me an excuse to try NINA out more fully

[Stuart1971]

On 30/12/2021 at 14:17, dannybgoode said:

I am almost certain now it is a driver issue.  I have completely flashed and re-installed Astroberry and even tried a different Pi4 and still the same.  Bizarrely if I plug the camera straight into the Pi4 the result is even worse as per the image below.  This is just the Pi4 and camera with a really simply EKOS profile for just the camera.  If I plug it back into the PPBA and take a sub through that then it reverts back to the lesser artefact but still unacceptable for imaging.  I have posted on the Indilib forum now as well to see if anyone has any ideas.

My Altair Astro 130M works fine as does my Sony RX10M4 so it does seem to be specifically related to how the SX674 is interacting with KSTARS/EKOS.  Ah well, gives me an excuse to try NINA out more fully

Did you ever get this sorted…?

[dannybgoode]

On 06/01/2022 at 23:23, Stuart1971 said:

Did you ever get this sorted…?

No and I've given up on it. NINA has been far more reliable in general in the short time I've been using it so I've moved over to that. 

I may try Astroberry again at some point in the future but see no pressing need. 

[wimvb]

@dannybgoode, just out of curiosity, what type of computer do you use with NINA?

[dannybgoode]

I'm using a Beelink mini PC and hooking in via Windows Remote Desktop. So far it has worked flawlessly...

[Stuart1971]

2 hours ago, dannybgoode said:

I'm using a Beelink mini PC and hooking in via Windows Remote Desktop. So far it has worked flawlessly...

Same here but with an intel NUC mini PC, NINA has been flawless and after 3 years of Stellarmate, it’s just great not to have issues regularly, every time it’s updated…although if it ever does become stable I may well try it again….👍🏼