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Old 17-06-2016, 12:03 AM
glend (Glen)
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Originally Posted by Camelopardalis View Post
Glen, having worked in support before myself, you have to accept that this is peoples jobs and they're not interested in the slightest about what else you may or may not have on your computer, they just want to fix the problem so you can get on and use the product as intended, whether it's hardware or software.

Declining hands-on help from the head guy sounds like cutting off your nose...sorry if that's a little too graphic, but you're complaining about an issue but don't want the manufacturers to help No ill will on my part, just an outsiders view. If you want me to delete this I will
Dunk i admit i have a problem turning over my one and only computer to a guy from China, regardless of his position as a supplier. My whole life is tied up in that computer, from my banking activities, to my childrens photos. It is entirely my choice. I am happy to send the camera back to him if he wishes. I too have been involved in computer support, both as a programmer and as the manager of a major bank's infrastructure. I would not grant a local support guy direct access to my computer either. There is always a risk associated with remote access without adequate secutiry protocols. A virus can be planted without my knowledge, and he may not even be aware he is carrying it. I know nothing of any safe guards he may have, or not have, or what his system has been connected to. Again it is my choice, if it means i wait a bit longer for a fix so be it.
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  #382  
Old 17-06-2016, 01:31 AM
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If it is your only computer you could to make an image of the hard drive, wipe it and reinstall Windows + drivers and try again. If it is still not working you could let the remote support try to fix it as there is nothing sensitive on the computer. Make sure you watch what they are doing and take notes so you can do the same to your original system. When all is done you can restore the image back.

It is a complicated way around the problem...
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  #383  
Old 17-06-2016, 05:37 AM
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lazjen (Chris)
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Although going off topic, I strongly suggest getting a dedicated machine for either astro or your sensitive activities (banking, etc) and don't mix the two. Given the amount of money we tend to throw around at this hobby, the cost of computer hardware is not that significant.

Back on topic: Glen, you had this working with an earlier driver? When you did your tests with SGP/APT did you revert any other changes you made? Have you updated anything else?
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  #384  
Old 17-06-2016, 07:36 AM
glend (Glen)
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Originally Posted by lazjen View Post
Although going off topic, I strongly suggest getting a dedicated machine for either astro or your sensitive activities (banking, etc) and don't mix the two. Given the amount of money we tend to throw around at this hobby, the cost of computer hardware is not that significant.

Back on topic: Glen, you had this working with an earlier driver? When you did your tests with SGP/APT did you revert any other changes you made? Have you updated anything else?
Pensioners don't have much money to throw around. I had to sell astro equipment, including my older camera, to purchase the ASI camera. I had been using a cheap HP Stream to run BYEOS in the observatory but it was never going to cope with all the storage and USB3 requirements of the new camera.

My system was working fine with SGP .14 and the ASCOM .5 driver, but Jared (SGP) swears SGP .15 is clean and everyone should stay on that release. Besides, APT has exactly the same problem with the 1600 - so what remains common - the camera and its drivers.

I suppose i could try running APT on the HP Stream with the camera connected to USB2; not a long term solution. I could allow Teamview access by ZWO to the HP Stream. I will talk to Sam about it. Thanks for bring that up.
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  #385  
Old 17-06-2016, 07:55 AM
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Originally Posted by glend View Post
Pensioners don't have much money to throw around. I had to sell astro equipment, including my older camera, to purchase the ASI camera. I had been using a cheap HP Stream to run BYEOS in the observatory but it was never going to cope with all the storage and USB3 requirements of the new camera.
That is true. Although you could use your powerful machine for astro, and use the HP Stream for the do banking/finance. Or get a cheap device for the banking stuff. Assuming some gear re-use (monitor, etc), you could probably setup a non-Windows system for less than $100 (e.g. a RPi) - 5% the cost of the ZWO camera.

Quote:
Originally Posted by glend View Post
I suppose i could try running APT on the HP Stream with the camera connected to USB2; not a long term solution. I could allow Teamview access by ZWO to the HP Stream. I will talk to Sam about it. Thanks for bring that up.
Unless the issue is related to USB3 also...
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  #386  
Old 17-06-2016, 08:54 AM
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Yeah I wondered what happened to your HP stream

That'd be a way for sure.

When it comes to storage...it depends on your usage case. If you're going to use the camera in the traditional astro image fashion, an image every couple of minutes doesn't tax USB 2.0. It's only if you get down to an image every second or faster that it becomes an issue. FWIW, I do my planetary imaging on a similarly low-spec USB 2.0-only machine at high frame rates and it gets results.
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  #387  
Old 17-06-2016, 10:15 AM
glend (Glen)
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The HP Stream has now been converted from a DSLR platform to an ASI1600/ASCOM , and the camera and drivers are installed. I also installed SGP and Teamviewer, so Sam can now have acess to it.
Interesting thing during the install, the HP could not see the camera when it was plugged into the USB3 port but when I moved the camera to a USB2 port it connected right away. I have always assumed that any USB3 port is backward compatible to USB2 if required.
I did some test Darks and its all working through SGP. Can't do Lights of course as it's on the kitchen bench, but access is available.

Sam has been notified that the camera and it's laptop and app and drivers are now available for Teamview access.
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  #388  
Old 17-06-2016, 06:24 PM
glend (Glen)
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ZWO Teamview Testing

OK the Teamview session with Sam is finished. From what I could observe here is what was involved.

- Upgrade of some WIN related items
- Upgrade of the USB3 Microsoft driver to an Intel USB3 driver.
- Extensive testing of frame stability (minimise drop frames) in Sharpcap 2.8. This was done by trying the various drivers to determine minimal (0) dropped frames while maintaining a good histrogram. A continuous stream of 2" frames were used
- Extensive testing of short Darks (or long Bias) frames in SGP. The method used was continuous Frame and Focus shots, 4 sec duration, and 4x4 bin, with the histrogram stretched. Interesting was the behaviour of the histogram with differing drivers loaded. The .8 Driver was noticably worse than the .5 Driver. What seemed to be the desired result was a good bell shaped histogram, without any shape change over long numbers of frames. Occassionally the frame would jump, and the histogram would change, some had long tails towards the white side. The .5 driver was the best at maintaining stable bell shaped histograms.
- Importantly SGP .15 exhibited no Frame and Focus freezing during the long stream of continuous frames.

During this testing, Sam tried various driver changes, including a camera driver and the ASCOM driver range. There maybe other things I missed.

Sam had this summary:

- He upgraded the FPGA code in my camera (Firmware upgrade), I have a version number off the file but do not know if this is just a test version or slated for production..What is a FPGA you ask? I had to do a search to find out, it is a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) which is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing – hence "field-programmable".
- Verified that ASCOM .5 is the most stable for me.
- Asked me to do more imaging testing and provide feedback.

I am very grateful to Sam for taking the time to get inside my system and test. I don't know how much user platform testing has been carried out, and I acknowledge that they can't provide this service to everyone. So thank you Sam.

As is to be expected, the cloud has moved in now and the forecast says four days of rain, so imaging is going to have to wait. My take away from today was some knowledge of how ZWO test and I think I can use these techniques to keep an eye on camera and application performance.
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  #389  
Old 17-06-2016, 09:30 PM
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Part of the problem is the complexity of Windows, driver loading, reproducibility on a range of hardware...it's impossible for any vendor to test every combination.

Great to hear it's working again
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  #390  
Old 19-06-2016, 11:22 PM
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FWIW, Mine is now also working normally under SGP with the latest ASCOM and SGP software (finally found 25 minutes of clear sky to test it).

It has always functioned under SharpCap and Nebulosity, but having SGP sorted is great. Thanks for your efforts Glen - it was good to see ZWO and SGP working so quickly to resolve issues as they arose.
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  #391  
Old 22-06-2016, 05:25 PM
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I was out on Monday evening doing some quick tests to figure out spacing for the flattener, and gathering a couple of flats through the OTA to see if that would impact the repeatability of the vignetting... SGP .15 and ASI ASCOM .8 were still playing nice for me with multi-second and sub-second exposures.

I think .8 might have more amp glow than .5, but I'm hesitant to swap out versions given that it's working for now. Think I'll just let it stabilise a bit first, hopefully soon we'll have a stable driver with reduced amp glow.

Anyway, not sure how useful that info is since different combos seem to be working for different people, but perhaps it'll be of some use.
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  #392  
Old 23-06-2016, 05:49 PM
glend (Glen)
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USB2 & USB3 Info Update

Over on CNs there is a recent (short) thread on problems with USB3 on this new generation of ZWO cameras (and this is not just a 1600 issue), all of the ZWO USB3 cameras can suffer from comms defaulting to USB2, but the computer it is plugged into can be the cause of that fallback, not the camera. Sam from ZWO got onto the thread and has linked in a set of instructions from the ZWO forum, and this is worth reading for anyone with a 1600. Basically, Sam advises:

"this is usually because of host USB3.0 controller, a driver update would fix this problem". This refers to your laptop or PC USB3 controller driver.
In my recent Teamviewer session with Sam, he upgraded my laptop USB3 controller to the one recommended in his forum post. Which is the:

intel USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller

Here is the CN thread link:

http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/54...-with-asi1600/

and here is the ZWO forum instruction post:

http://zwoug.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1688

Sam lists many incompatible USB3 host controllers in that thread.

It is easy to check your installed USB3 driver, just go into the Device Manager section and check which USB3 controller is loaded on your laptop or PC.
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  #393  
Old 24-06-2016, 07:07 AM
glend (Glen)
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Another Driver Update

It seems ZWO has released yet another ASCOM driver, V 1.0.2.9.
See the ZWO website for details, which include some release notes.
I will be staying on .5 until reports come in on this one. It has only been 7 days since Sam confirmed .5 was the current best option, but the release note suggest .9 corrects some problems in Nebulosity and APT operation; but does not clarify if it is an evolution improvement of .5 or running on from .8.
It is probably prudent to stay on what works for you, unless you want to Beta test each release.
Interestingly ZWO still provides the download link for .5 on the same page.
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  #394  
Old 24-06-2016, 04:38 PM
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That's good news. Also good that they're now providing release notes.
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  #395  
Old 25-06-2016, 02:26 PM
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Well, it's looking like it's going to stay clear tonight, and the wind back to windy but reasonable levels so I'll finally get a first light tonight.

The adapter from precise parts has shipped but won't be here for a few days which means I have a choice between using the flattener, or OAG. I'm going to use the flattener and shoot some very short (15s) unguided images and see how I go. Might be total junk, but it'll be interesting anyway. Planning on using unity gain.
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  #396  
Old 25-06-2016, 02:34 PM
glend (Glen)
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Originally Posted by codemonkey View Post
Well, it's looking like it's going to stay clear tonight, and the wind back to windy but reasonable levels so I'll finally get a first light tonight.

The adapter from precise parts has shipped but won't be here for a few days which means I have a choice between using the flattener, or OAG. I'm going to use the flattener and shoot some very short (15s) unguided images and see how I go. Might be total junk, but it'll be interesting anyway. Planning on using unity gain.
What the target Lee and are you shooting Luminance only?
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  #397  
Old 25-06-2016, 02:46 PM
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codemonkey (Lee)
Lee "Wormsy" Borsboom

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What the target Lee and are you shooting Luminance only?
IC 4601 and I'll be shooting LRGB. Expecting the worst, hoping for the best ;-)
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  #398  
Old 25-06-2016, 09:02 PM
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The seeing isn't too bad down here in the big smoke, but the Moon will be up shortly. Looking forward to seeing how you get on Lee
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  #399  
Old 25-06-2016, 10:10 PM
glend (Glen)
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Well lets see it.
I just finished a long sub (300") narrowband test shoot at Unity on NGC 6188, i have over 5 hours of subs now collected over several clear nights. Not one dropped frame, no SGP issues, it performed flawlessly.
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Old 26-06-2016, 07:54 AM
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codemonkey (Lee)
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The seeing isn't too bad down here in the big smoke, but the Moon will be up shortly. Looking forward to seeing how you get on Lee
Not that well, as one might expect from 15s LRGB subs Have only seen the L data so far -- it's a lot of data to process for such a short integration time.

I'll post it up and maybe do it properly with decent subs when I get the adapter. At the moment it's not good though ;-)

Quote:
Originally Posted by glend View Post
Well lets see it.
I just finished a long sub (300") narrowband test shoot at Unity on NGC 6188, i have over 5 hours of subs now collected over several clear nights. Not one dropped frame, no SGP issues, it performed flawlessly.
Likewise, let's see it Glen That's the usual experience with SGP, good to hear things are back to normal for you.
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