Asiair Pro Video settings

[Pitch Black Skies]

Hi guys,

I've decided to try some lunar photography with my guide cam (ASI224MC) and Asiair Pro.

I'm confused about what values I should set the video settings at in the Asiair.

Can someone help?

I'm using a 130P-DS

[Elp]

Although I haven't used the video function from my experience with Firecapture and OACapture you basically set it until it looks acceptable, with those softwares I've always set them to capture images though because if you're not specifically recording uncompressed video each frame will be compressed (hence lost detail):

WB(R) I assume is the level of red exposure contributing to the colour of the white balance - on the software i've used these can normally be set to automatic,

WB(B) same as above but for the blue channel,

Gain is a bit like ISO on a standard camera, if you increase it the brightness of each pixel increases in basic terms, what it's actually doing is setting a per pixel parameter to determine when a received photon gets converted to signal controlling the dynamic range. In general terms (from my experience with traditional cameras), I try to keep the value low as raising it may introduce noise rather than getting you the signal you require, when imaging planets i've generally kept to around 50-100.

Exposure is the length of time of each frame of capture, in your image this is set to micro seconds (0.000001 of a second) and your set exposure of 410 will expose the image for 0.000410 seconds per frame, its short hence why your preview of the moon is dim as it is not giving the sensor enough time to capture the amount of light you want. Normally you also have options of milliseconds (ms or 0.001 of a second) or seconds (s). For bright or quick moving objects exposure lengths should be kept low, for slow dim objects (such as most AP targets like nebulae) its the opposite.

So basically once your colour looks right by adjusting the red and blue white balance settings (I note the histogram option on the left - this may help as a visual guide, I think they need to be aligned or near enough - without seeing it open its difficult to see how it works) you need to decide on a balance of the right length of exposure time vs gain. Too long exposure time will make the image (or in your case shooting at PAL 25 frames per second (FPS)) will make each frame blurry especially if the atmospheric seeing conditions are turbulent, when I've shot the moon with a DSLR I've used something like 1/250 second exposure so 0.004s or 4ms for one frame. If the image is sharp you can try to increase the gain to brighten the image if its a little dim, or you can also increase the exposure length to brighten the image. Too high a gain and it can cause your levels to blow out leaving little differentiation between neighbouring pixels (as it has a bearing on dynamic range) and can potentially introduce unwanted noise. It's a balancing act in essence.

A bit long winded sorry... As a start from the settings you already have, try increasing the exposure time.

[Pitch Black Skies]

I set the gain to unity and left WB (B) and WB (R) at 50, there doesn't seem to be an automatic setting for them. Not sure if that was correct or not. I never checked the histogram.

I adjusted the exposure until it looked bright on my screen.

If I reduced the exposure time, would that have given me more FPS?

Anyway this is what I managed ⬇️

It's okay, not overly impressed with it. It's a mosaic.

I might try my main cam next as a comparison. That can fit the whole disc in it's FOV. I will try a longer video and stack a small percentage.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Pitch Black Skies

[Elp]

From experience, lowering the resolution of the capture (in Firecapture and OAcapture you can define a region of interest ROI any size you want within your max resolution), it's via this the FPS increases, I don't think there's another way (it's a bit misleading from a sales point stating the FPS of an astro camera without being clear it's not at full resolution). Make sure it's plugged via the usb 3 ports too. When I imaged Jupiter and Saturn at 320 x 240 I was getting close to 120 FPS via an astroberry raspberry pi, takes a few minutes to take a few thousand images.

White balance on auto is usually okay, it's when seeing is difficult and what you're trying to image seems to change colour every frame due to the auto settings trying to compensate where you manually have to set it. You can always change the colour in post.

If you can set the asiair to save as an image sequence, I usually save as tiff if you can, the default fit will also work.

Nice image, I haven't tried doing a mosaic of the moon as usually the dslr enables it to be full frame, never seen a reason to take video either as usually the moon images pretty clear (imaging the sun is another game entirely). I suppose Autostakkert can help with the sharpening once stacked.

Good luck!

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by Elp