294MC Pro, L-eXtreme and a bunch of flats......

[edarter]

following this thread as I have the 294mc pro on my wish list, does this mean the issue is solved now then? Making sure the offset is as per ASI recommendation?

Thanks
Ed

[PadrePeace]

11 minutes ago, edarter said:

following this thread as I have the 294mc pro on my wish list, does this mean the issue is solved now then? Making sure the offset is as per ASI recommendation?

Thanks
Ed

I think you need to ensure the both the Ascom driver offset and the camera offset are both the same. Not sure that you need to have them at default but I would simply to start off with a baseline setting to move on from if that is your wish.

[edarter]

4 minutes ago, PadrePeace said:

I think you need to ensure the both the Ascom driver offset and the camera offset are both the same. Not sure that you need to have them at default but I would simply to start off with a baseline setting to move on from if that is your wish.

thanks, and doing that allows the use of a master flat? (as can be produced in APP)

[Adam J]

2 hours ago, PadrePeace said:

Great. That’s what I’m getting but just a different pattern which is clearly a fingerprint of my specific setup. Thanks for helping with images. Paints a thousand words. Glad you got your kit working well. 

Yes the pattern is indevidual to each IMX294c and can have extremes. Some people dont have issues at all because they lucked out and got one when the pattern is less strong. Some cant calibrate at all it would seem in the worst case.

Adam

Edited January 20, 2022 by Adam J

[scotty38]

6 hours ago, Budgie1 said:

Offset of 8 is the default for the ZWO drivers, offset of 30 is the ASCOM driver default.

Did you swap drivers at any stage or did the new PC use the ZWO drivers as default?

Apologies, I only just saw your post. From what I see here both drivers seem to have 30 as the default. I have applied both drivers in NINA etc just to have a look but not sure I've ever imaged with the ZWO driver. I'm going to try changing one to see if it impacts the other....oh and no I've only used the ASCOM driver on the new pc but that was the problem as it used the default of 30 whereas all my lights and calibration files to that point had the offset of 8.

EDIT: Changing the offset in NINA retains that setting irrespective of the driver. If you set it to 30 in NINA with the ASCOM driver in use and then swap to the ZWO driver the offset stays at 30. Change it to 8 and then go back to ASCOM and it stays at 8 so NINA wins every time. This is most likely why I see both drivers at 30 as they're taking my NINA settings. I guess I'd have to reinstall the drivers from scratch to check the real ZWO default.

I'm still not sure how I got to 8 originally but I'm sure that until I updated with the new pc I wasn't seeing the offset show up in NINA and it had to be changed in the driver. I am wondering if that behaviour has changed in a later ASCOM driver for all the obvious reasons....

Edited January 21, 2022 by scotty38

[Budgie1]

I use APT and when I got my ASI294MC I used the ZWO driver, which set the offset to 8. I read about the ASCOM driver being better than the ZWO one, so I gave it a go and I'm sure that set the offset to 30 when I installed it.

As it turned out, when I used the ASCOM driver, I seemed to get noisier images with it, so I went back to the ZWO native driver and put the offset back to 8.

I may go back and have another go with the ASCOM driver but I'm just not getting any clear nights up here. I had one in October, none in November, five in December and none so far this month. While everyone has been having cold clear nights in the last couple of weeks, we've been under cloud. As a result, any clear nights I do get, I don't want to waste with experimentation.

[PadrePeace]

9 hours ago, edarter said:

thanks, and doing that allows the use of a master flat? (as can be produced in APP)

All I can say until I can check my own rig is that it seems to work for Scotty38. 

[PadrePeace]

Might be worth us all having a look at this thread. Authoritative advice in here on getting good flats with the 294. https://forums.sharpcap.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=3855

[scotty38]

11 hours ago, PadrePeace said:

Might be worth us all having a look at this thread. Authoritative advice in here on getting good flats with the 294. https://forums.sharpcap.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=3855

Interesting thanks. Might give this a go just to see what happens but, touch wood, I seem to be ok now I sorted the offset discrepancies...

[vlaiv]

11 hours ago, PadrePeace said:

Might be worth us all having a look at this thread. Authoritative advice in here on getting good flats with the 294. https://forums.sharpcap.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=3855

That is very interesting find. I had no idea camera can behave like that.

It is good to know that such thing is possible.

[PadrePeace]

22 hours ago, vlaiv said:

That is very interesting find. I had no idea camera can behave like that.

It is good to know that such thing is possible.

Credit to AdamJ who put me onto this thread. 

[PadrePeace]

23 hours ago, scotty38 said:

Interesting thanks. Might give this a go just to see what happens but, touch wood, I seem to be ok now I sorted the offset discrepancies...

Scotty38

I use the NINA Flats tool to get my flats. I can set the offset in NINA and have it at 30 currently. Where would I find the ASCOM offset?

[scotty38]

44 minutes ago, PadrePeace said:

Scotty38

I use the NINA Flats tool to get my flats. I can set the offset in NINA and have it at 30 currently. Where would I find the ASCOM offset?

Use the gears icon in the camera tab. As far as I can tell changes you make in NINA will override what is in here though.

 

[PadrePeace]

I took some 6 mins subs at 200 gain and 30 offset last night and will try matched calibration files with them to see if I can get flats to work with my 294MC. 

[The Lazy Astronomer]

On 29/01/2022 at 11:00, vlaiv said:

That is very interesting find. I had no idea camera can behave like that.

It is good to know that such thing is possible.

We discussed this (briefly) a little while ago: 

 

[vlaiv]

6 minutes ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

We discussed this (briefly) a little while ago:

Completely forgot about that (I just saw that I participated briefly in that thread). Will need to revisit it.

[Anthonyexmouth]

Sorry to resurrect this, but what's the final outcome here with the 294mc and dual band filters? I was just about to buy one but holding off now. For info, my filter drawer is right against my camera so probably 16-18mm away at filter face, if that makes any difference.

[scotty38]

For me, using a gain of 200 eliminated the flats issues. I'd also had some issues with offsets but that aside moving away from gain 121 seemed to work ok.

[Anthonyexmouth]

8 hours ago, scotty38 said:

For me, using a gain of 200 eliminated the flats issues. I'd also had some issues with offsets but that aside moving away from gain 121 seemed to work ok.

So is it something you'd recommend, or do again yourself? On the fence now whether I should get one. 

[scotty38]

Personally I'd have no problem having another colour 294 but I do appreciate that some folk have a hard time getting them set up 100%

I have the mono QHY 294 which by all accounts is not as finicky as the colour versions but even so I still had to tweak getting the flats as I wanted them.

If you want an almost guaranteed easy life then I'd probably suggest either the 533 or 2600. Downsides there are, respectively, sensor size and cost......

[Anthonyexmouth]

35 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

Personally I'd have no problem having another colour 294 but I do appreciate that some folk have a hard time getting them set up 100%

I have the mono QHY 294 which by all accounts is not as finicky as the colour versions but even so I still had to tweak getting the flats as I wanted them.

If you want an almost guaranteed easy life then I'd probably suggest either the 533 or 2600. Downsides there are, respectively, sensor size and cost......

I mean would you pair an l-Extreme or enhance with a 294? I have a 294 and had 3 good years with it and find it a nice camera with the right calibration frames. 

Just wondering if its worth spending on the dual band filter for it. 

[scotty38]

Oh sorry, yes I would but same comments apply that you may have to "tweak" things to get the flats working as you need. The l-extreme worked brilliantly in my opinion.