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Old 25-05-2016, 06:12 AM
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Shiraz (Ray)
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: ardrossan south australia
Posts: 4,918
Quote:
Originally Posted by glend View Post
Had my first try at imaging with the ASI1600 tonight, and had some issues. Nothing really with camera itself but the support infrastructure and software. At first i thought i might have a dead camera but it turned out you can't run the camera through a usb3 powered hub! I was tearing my hair out trying all the different apps and even pointed it at the moon, but nothing - until i plugged the camera usb3 cable directly into my laptop. I recall that Jon R on CN reported issues with USB3 cables. I have a nice Mbeat combined usb2 and usb3 powered hub, which has been serving me well in the dslr world for years. It will not pass through the camera traffic however. Since i only have one usb3 hub on my laptop, if i plug the camera in directly then i can't plug in the guide camera and the filter wheel - both usb2 but they were working off the mbeat usb3 hub, which the camera doesn't like. On top of this, i can't get my ZWO ASI130mm guide camera to work at the same time as the ASI1600, in SGPro, which ever one starts first takes the ASI driver as its own. I am going to have to ask Sam at ZWO about that - unacceptable. Focusing and framing! Why does that have to be so hard? Love the simplicity of dslr focusing in Liveview, or BYEOS. SGPro runs a series of short subs to help focus but the lag is annoying, Sharpcap is better because you can do it in video mode. So more work to do in the next few days. Anyone have any ideas about usb3 management?
Ray better think about how your going to handle the usb3 issue.
thanks for the tips Glen. Crikey, it's unheard of for anyone to have USB problems

I have a QHY guide cam and a pc with 3x USB3 ports, so I guess I should be able to connect directly from the camera to the PC for initial testing. Hopefully we can find a hub that will play with the ZWO - off to Officeworks today to see what they have. Of course, it is also possible that we will be able to ditch the guiders altogether, which would solve your ASI driver clash.

Am planning to do a minimalist changeover by unscrewing the H694, screwing on the 1600 and accepting the vignetting for now - then changing to a larger filter wheel at a later date (want to keep the 694 though for really deep imaging until the full capability of the new camera is understood). I expect that a lot of galaxy targets of interest will be available in sub image regions on the 1600 (if that works as hoped) - using less than the full 16mp will be a sensible way to keep the data load manageable with 10 sec subs.

The CN threads have been interesting, but a lot of the folks are still looking at using the thing at unity (or lower) gain with long subs - seems to me that they will just end up with a 16mp 8300 . I am itching to get some high quality long exposure data at high gain and with very short subs - that's where the totally new capability of the camera lies. And of course, a full image of the moon at super high res will be an interesting thing to try - and the planets at 100+ fps with sub-region selection.....

Last edited by Shiraz; 25-05-2016 at 06:30 AM.
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