What is the right sharp cap settings for ASI462MC

[Quetzalcoatl72]

Unfortunately I can't take equipment with me from my bortle 7 garden, So I've waited all my time in this hobby for Saturn to finally be situated above the house. Unfortunately it's still low to enough go behind a tree or satellite dish but there is still enough imaging time. Also what isn't good for me is the ring is almost horizontal with the planet so it's not as appealing to me. I recorded last night but it was quite blurry, however the sky was low humidity and the stars look sharp, for the record I was recording andromeda too and it looked the best out of my other attempts. Also the planet was not yellow but gray, I had it set to rggb and raw8, unfortunately the file is a .ser instead of .avi, I hope I can view this. As you can see in my signature I am capable of recording Jupiter, though it was with a 5"SCT and a ASI120MC which is now my guide camera. I am using the RC8 and ASI462MC.

[ANTARES1_1]

Well facing the same problems here!

Using an 8" cat and Sony dslr in these conditions is has become very hard.

I don't know much about asi cams but maybe changing WBB/WBR to 50 might help?

 

[ANTARES1_1]

By the way are planetary cameras good for photographing deep sky? I might consider replacing my Sony dslr

 

Edited September 12 by ANTARES1_1

[symmetal]

It's grey because it's not been debayered. The stacking software like Autostakkert will do the debayering and give you a colour image. You can select to debayer while recording but this will reduce your capture framerate as significant processer time is required to debayer each frame. Also it would likely use a quick debayer algorithm which won't give the best image.

Ser player is playing the video as recorded which is not debayered so shows up as grey.

The preview image in Sharpcap is likely debayered so showing as colour but when recording debayering is usually disabled to maximize the framerate. You can adjust the red and blue gain settings looking at the colour preview image and those settings will be applied to the red and blue pixel data while recording but won't show until it's debayered.

Ser is a better choice than AVI for recording as it has more options and will likely give a smaller file size than AVI. AVI will likely record as 24-bit rgb with each 8-bit raw frame being recorded three times in the RG and B channels. AVI can record 8 bit mono I believe though often isn't supported by other software. Ser can also record in 16 bit mono though for planetary 8 bit recording is fine, as stacking will increase you final image to around 12 bits resolution anyway. 16 bit recording will reduce your framerate and double your file size.

Alan

Edited September 12 by symmetal

[Cosmic Geoff]

If you managed to image Jupiter OK...

Nothing wrong with recording a .ser file. That's what I use all the time - IIRC it avoids having to debayer an AVI file. 

My recent Saturn images were more fuzzy that I would have liked. 

You can play with the Sharpcap settings: if you adjust the gain you can get the exposure time to a suitable range e.g. 10ms or less.  And a small ROI to avoid wasting filespace.

[Quetzalcoatl72]

18 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

You can play with the Sharpcap settings: if you adjust the gain you can get the exposure time to a suitable range e.g. 10ms or less.  And a small ROI to avoid wasting filespace.

I just put the gain at 0 as I think it adds noise, yeah 2 minute videos can be up to 15gb each

[symmetal]

47 minutes ago, ANTARES1_1 said:

By the way are planetary cameras good for photographing deep sky? I might consider replacing my Sony dslr

 

You can use them for deep sky but their small sensor size will limit your FOV and their usually smaller pixels may not be optimum. Also they are uncooled so will be noisier than cooled cameras. For planetary the noise isn't really an issue, as stacking thousands of frames will mitigate this.

Alan

[Quetzalcoatl72]

45 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

My recent Saturn images were more fuzzy that I would have liked. 

Just did a quick process, tbh I' not even sure if this was in focus it's really hard to tell when you're out there, I don't if the gaps between the planet and rings are normal

[bosun21]

I always capture in SER files as they are better for the reasons highlighted above. What sort of frame rate are you achieving? You can set your exposure time and gain setting by looking at the histogram and getting it to fall somewhere between 75 - 90%. You most definitely don't want the gain set to zero!. I'm usually around 350 to 450 depending on conditions and which planet I'm actually imaging, also which camera is being used. Are you using the ROI to achieve a higher frame rate? Also ensure that you have the maximum frame rate box ticked.

Edited September 12 by bosun21

[Quetzalcoatl72]

3 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

What sort of frame rate are you achieving? You can set your exposure time and gain setting by looking at the histogram and getting it to fall somewhere between 75 - 90%. You most definitely don't want the gain set to zero!. I'm usually around 350 to 450 depending on conditions and which planet I'm imaging, also which camera being used. Are you using the ROI to achieve a higher frame rate? Also ensure that you have the maximum frame rate box ticked.

I just noticed I've have been using usb 2.0 all this time I thought I had just one but that's reserved for the telescope mount, I have 2 high speed ports, I hope my guider would be ok in the 2.0 one from now on. The fps is around 14, should I be capturing in RAW8, is binning a factor too?

[Cosmic Geoff]

39 minutes ago, Quetzalcoatl72 said:

The fps is around 14, should I be capturing in RAW8, is binning a factor too?

14 fps seems very low.  I'd want a faster rate than that for Saturn. If you reduce the ROI it will probably run faster.  I don't use binning.

Your Saturn looks a bit out of focus.

[symmetal]

Capture in raw8 and unbinned. Binning will just make your image smaller. Your fps is very low even for USB2. Are you using a ROI just to capture just the planet. Also select high speed mode in the camera settings. This will capture in around 10 bit mode rather than the default 12 bit which will increase your frame rate.

Disable gamma when recording as processing gamma for each frame will significantly affect your fps. Gamma is useful on the preview for increasing contrast but your final processing software can adjust your final gamma to taste.

As bosun21 says use a high gain setting. It will look very noisy on the preview but stacking in processing will get rid of that. Set your exposure to around 5mS and increase the gain to get a good histogram, not clipping the white or black ends of the histogram. Set the camera offset to ensure there is a histogram gap below the black spike corresponding to the sky background, to avoid black clipping.

5mS exposure allows a maximum fps of 200 but your camera is limited to 136 fps, so you could use up to 7mS to get your max fps. The longer the exposure the more blurred your final stacked image is likely to be.

Use a USB3 cable and port on your capture rig if possible, and set the USB speed in the camera settings to 100%. For a small ROI this is usually fine but if you get image errors or no image reduce this until you get a stable image.

Your camera doesn't have an UV/IR cut window, to enable capturing infra-red using an IR pass filter, but this will give blurry images when capturing RGB as the out of focus IR will be recorded too. So put aUV/IR cut filter (commonly called a luminance filter) in your imaging train somewhere.

Your Saturn is out of focus, not helped if you're capturing IR too, and over exposed, giving the result your seeing.

Alan

Edited September 12 by symmetal

[Kon]

What has been said above are excellent suggestions. I have the 462 and I get 100fps at 10ms capture using a reduced ROI. Seeing has been horrendous and we currently have a horrible Jetstream above us so images are quite soft. Try get as many captures as you can and try derotating in winjupos. That way you pick the best frames.

 

Additionally, check your collimation on a star with your camera as this will make a huge difference between a soft and sharp image.

Under bad seeing, an IR pass filter will be your friend and can rescue a bad night. The 462 has excellent IR sensitivity.

[Quetzalcoatl72]

3 hours ago, symmetal said:

Capture in raw8 and unbinned. Binning will just make your image smaller. Your fps is very low even for USB2. Are you using a ROI just to capture just the planet. Also select high speed mode in the camera settings. This will capture in around 10 bit mode rather than the default 12 bit which will increase your frame rate.

I'm not using any ROI, I think I only have one usb3. I wonder what is more demanding the cameras or the mount, should the mount be on usb2.0? I wonder if it matters considering that I have 2 cameras running on one usb cable.

Edited September 12 by Quetzalcoatl72

[Quetzalcoatl72]

3 hours ago, Kon said:

I have the 462 and I get 100fps at 10ms capture using a reduced ROI. 

Additionally, check your collimation on a star with your camera as this will make a huge difference between a soft and sharp image.

My laptop is only a decade old and reliable, so I'm not sure what fps I should be getting. I find collimation a true nightmare, it wastes hours especially since I'm inexperienced with it, and the number of clear skys seems to be decreasing each year. Also I don't own the equipment, I just do it by eye, when I do do it. I don't travel with the scope so bumps and movement is to a minimum.

[symmetal]

22 minutes ago, Quetzalcoatl72 said:

I'm not using any ROI, I think I only have one usb3. I wonder what is more demanding the cameras or the mount, should the mount be on usb2.0? I wonder if it matters considering that I have 2 cameras running on one usb cable.

For planetary imaging the camera is much more demanding, so USB3 is what it needs. The mount will work fine on USB2, as the amount of data being transferred is very low. What's the second camera used for? Is your USB2 cable a Y splitter or is one camera plugged into a usb hub on the other. The second camera and the mount could run on the USB2 Y splitter cable if that's what you have. If it's a guide camera that would be OK but you don't need a guide camera for planetary imaging.

An ROI is important to get an increased frame rate by not transferring lots of empty sky data. Selecting say a 200x200 pixel ROI (if that will cover your planet ) you would likely get an increase from 14 to around 40fps or so even with your existing setup. For interest, only the height of the ROI affects the frame rate. Reducing the width just reduces the amount of data being transferred.

Alan

Edited September 12 by symmetal

[Quetzalcoatl72]

10 minutes ago, symmetal said:

For planetary imaging the camera is much more demanding, so USB3 is what it needs. The mount will work fine on USB2, as the amount of data being transferred is very low. What's the second camera used for? Is your USB2 cable a Y splitter or is one camera plugged into a usb hub on the other. The second camera and the mount could run on the USB2 Y splitter cable if that's what you have. If it's a guide camera that would be OK but you don't need a guide camera for planetary imaging.

Alan

For deep sky, the guide camera is plugged into the back of main one as the 533 acts as a hub then it's plugged into usb2 from that. Tonight I tried to plug it into the USB3 port but only the guide camera was showing up on NINA, since I setup ASCOM for those specific ports to be used for their purposes I now can't get them working and don't remember how I set it all up. Since the planetary camera does not have a usb port on the back it goes straight into another USB2. I thought I had 2 USB3's but it seems I only have one as I get the message "this camera would perform better on a 3.0 port". I would love to try to swap the ports around via ASCOM again but have no idea how.

Edited September 12 by Quetzalcoatl72

[Quetzalcoatl72]

I feel like I have to use the guide camera to find the planet as when I get it to goto one via stellarium it's not on the screen and I have to use the numpad to find it which would take anywhere up to half an hour which is infuriating especially with a 2x barlow. I am polar aligned at the moment but it still does not show up direct, the guidescope isn't aligned right, I have to align it every time I use it since it goes out when I take it off the scope for storage

[symmetal]

For planetary I would disconnect the 533 and plug the planetary into the USB3 and the mount into the USB2. For deep sky, plug the guide camera into the 533 hub as before and the 533 into the USB3, with the mount still on USB2.

Are you using a mix of native ASI drivers and Ascom drivers? Changing the USB ports the cameras are plugged into may cause the 'ASI Camera 1' and 'ASI Camera 2' Ascom designations to get swapped over. Disconnecting the cameras in NINA and PHD2 should enable you to select the Ascom camera selector and choose which of your cameras are ASI Camera 1 and 2.

Alan

[symmetal]

2 minutes ago, Quetzalcoatl72 said:

I feel like I have to use the guide camera to find the planet as when I get it to goto one via stellarium it's not on the screen and I have to use the numpad to find it which would take anywhere up to half an hour which is infuriating especially with a 2x barlow. I am polar aligned at the moment but it still does not show up direct, the guidescope isn't aligned right, I have to align it every time I use it since it goes out when I take it off the scope for storage

Yes, having the guide camera to find the planet is useful. I use it when using the LX200 and powermate for the same reason. You could use a USB2 Y splitter cable as I mentioned above with the mount in 1 and the guide camera in the other. I've used them in the past and they worked fine. I think they just split the USB2 bandwidth in half for each device. Here's an example on Amazon.

That would save you having to buy another hub.

Alan

 

[Quetzalcoatl72]

40 minutes ago, symmetal said:

Are you using a mix of native ASI drivers and Ascom drivers? Changing the USB ports the cameras are plugged into may cause the 'ASI Camera 1' and 'ASI Camera 2' Ascom designations to get swapped over. Disconnecting the cameras in NINA and PHD2 should enable you to select the Ascom camera selector and choose which of your cameras are ASI Camera 1 and 2.

My camera and cables are working as they both show up on sharpcap but not when you choose ASI Camera (1), (2). I reinstalled ZWO drivers and now there's data missing in these boxes on the ASCOM Profile, do i need to enter data into these? 

[Quetzalcoatl72]

I've just ruined A night trying to get them to work ugh

[symmetal]

17 hours ago, Quetzalcoatl72 said:

My camera and cables are working as they both show up on sharpcap but not when you choose ASI Camera (1), (2). I reinstalled ZWO drivers and now there's data missing in these boxes on the ASCOM Profile, do i need to enter data into these? 

I just ran Profile Manager on my setup and got these results for the 2 ASI cameras. The CamName is filled in automatically. It looks like yours aren't being recognized, as the other data just looks like default values.

Are you running the latest version of Ascom (6.6SP2)? Did you install the latest Zwo native drivers as well as their Ascom ones as I think the Ascom drivers rely on the native drivers being installed too, so both need to be the latest versions.

Alan

[Quetzalcoatl72]

On 13/09/2024 at 18:38, symmetal said:

I just ran Profile Manager on my setup and got these results for the 2 ASI cameras. The CamName is filled in automatically. It looks like yours aren't being recognized, as the other data just looks like default values.

Are you running the latest version of Ascom (6.6SP2)? Did you install the latest Zwo native drivers as well as their Ascom ones as I think the Ascom drivers rely on the native drivers being installed too, so both need to be the latest versions.

Unfortunately my laptops internet doesn't work so I can't update anything, no look installing drivers either, so card and or those black and white cables may have gone caput or I need a full OS reinstall. My 533 only shows up on one usb port it's so weird, like that's the port i first plugged it into to install the driver, seems to be the main issue, perhaps I uninstall then reinstall plugged into the 3.0.

Edited September 16 by Quetzalcoatl72

[Quetzalcoatl72]

On 12/09/2024 at 20:15, Cosmic Geoff said:

14 fps seems very low.  I'd want a faster rate than that for Saturn. If you reduce the ROI it will probably run faster.  I don't use binning.

Your Saturn looks a bit out of focus.

I tried all the tips everyone gave me here, this is my best picture thus far, it was next to an extremely bright moon and I still managed to get some detail!