#361  
Old 15-06-2016, 07:39 AM
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codemonkey (Lee)
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Yeah, the .8 worked for me but the .7 release did not. If there's one thing I've learned with astro stuff: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unless you have a very good reason to upgrade either SGP or the ASCOM driver for the ASI1600, I'd highly recommend sticking with the versions that you know work, at least until things have stabilised a bit.
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  #362  
Old 15-06-2016, 10:33 AM
glend (Glen)
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I have reviewed my test images, shot is both Ha and Lum, these were simple star shots at various shot (30 & 60") sub lengths - they are completely black (with the exception of some noise). It would appear that I am getting nothing now from the camera, even though the download runs and the star analyser runs and it saves the file - there is nothing there apparently. And no the scope cap was not on, and the camera was powered and cooled and connected in SGP, and I was shooting Lights. Funny thing is that 10" Frame and Focus images worked but looked strange, very washed out.
Jared says stay with .15, Sam says 'what problem', anyone with any ideas?
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  #363  
Old 15-06-2016, 10:50 AM
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Atmos (Colin)
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Put in an eye piece and get sketching?

On a more serious note, you should be able to do a bit of testing during the day
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  #364  
Old 15-06-2016, 11:13 AM
glend (Glen)
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Originally Posted by Atmos View Post
...
On a more serious note, you should be able to do a bit of testing during the day

I have uninstalled and reloaded both SGP .15 and the ASCOM .5 driver. I will do some infrastructure testing this afternoon, to see if i can get my powered USB3 extension cable to work, and try to sequence some darks. I might try some flats.
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  #365  
Old 15-06-2016, 02:42 PM
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Shiraz (Ray)
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maybe check that your bias has not set itself to something weird and also check that the cooler is actually getting the chip temperature down to the target. Nebulosity threw a wobbly when I ran the camera at low bias without cooling - it recognised that it was being presented with negative results and refused to work.

also, does the camera work in SharpCap with the supplied USB3 cable? At least you could establish that the camera still functions.
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  #366  
Old 15-06-2016, 03:18 PM
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speach (Simon)
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I've been following this thread, and it's starting to go over my head but would you fellows stay that this is a good camera to get as I jump up from a dslr? My thoughts are to get the mono one? Any advice would be appreciated.
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  #367  
Old 15-06-2016, 04:19 PM
glend (Glen)
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Its a great camera Simon, don't be put off by the dramas with SGP. Its a logical step up from a dslr, which is where i came from.

Now i can report that SGP .15 and ASCOM .5 are working. I uninstalled the lot and reinstalled with the .5 driver and i am back in business. Did some daytime testing this afternoon, including moon imaging. I was pushing SGP pretty hard with a sequence of moon subs of 1" and filter changes every ten subs. I thought that might trip it up but it ran through fine. It was running over my powered usb3 extension cable as well. So hopefully i can get back to my 300" narrowband imaging tonight.
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  #368  
Old 15-06-2016, 05:00 PM
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lazjen (Chris)
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I just saw some messages over on the INDI forums about this camera, so it's getting tested/developed for other platforms too (e.g. Linux/Raspberry PI), which is very encouraging.
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  #369  
Old 15-06-2016, 08:45 PM
glend (Glen)
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I am giving up for awhile, I can't get SGP to work properly in the dark, and I don't know if I have a camera problem as well. While I could get images of the moon this afternoon, tonight I have no real gain despite cranking it up to 300 I can't get the stars bright enough to focus with a mask. I don't know it its SGP or the camera driver, but it certainly is not behaving the way it was before these supposed upgrades to SGP and the driver.
I am tempted to try APT, I tried Sharpcap tonight and could not even produce an image. Love the camera, when it was working but in the last week I have nothing to show for hours of effort. Frustration is the word.
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  #370  
Old 15-06-2016, 09:51 PM
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Atmos (Colin)
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You could always download a trial version of MaximDL, that will give you can indication as to whether it is the driver (which I assume is ASCOM) or SGP talking to the driver.
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  #371  
Old 15-06-2016, 11:16 PM
glend (Glen)
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Yes that is a good idea Colin. Just saw a post on CN reporting the same dark frames i have been getting, it maybe another driver problem is the CN speculation. I am glad to know others are seeing the same problem, thought it was me. Apparently it happens in both the .5 and ,8 driver, but the .8 is much worse. I see ZWO has now withdrawn the .8 driver (quietly) and is showing .5 as the current ASCOM driver on their website. Of course no acknowledgement from Sam concerning a problem, no release or rollback notes. I still believe the .4 driver was the best as i ran for three weeks on it with no issues, then they went and changed it.
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  #372  
Old 15-06-2016, 11:29 PM
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Shiraz (Ray)
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did you reload the basic driver as well as the ASCOM driver?

in Sharpcap, did you try to run it as a direct show camera? I have had no trouble with direct show, but I think it requires that the basic driver be in good condition. It might be a good idea to establish that the hardware is working properly by running Sharpcap/directshow, using the supplied USB3 cable, and without reference to ASCOM or SGP. If that works, try it as an ASCOM camera under Sharpcap (the direct show driver may set the chip up properly so that it works under ASCOM). If you can get it to run under ASCOM in Sharpcap, try SGP again and then move onto the extended USB hardware. That might give you some idea of where the problem(s) lie.

FWIW, I would guess that the various bits of software load registers in the chip to control the various functions, so unplugging and reconnecting the camera USB may also be worth doing if things play up - might possibly clear a register that is not in the right state

Last edited by Shiraz; 16-06-2016 at 01:23 AM.
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  #373  
Old 16-06-2016, 08:40 AM
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ZeroID (Brent)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by speach View Post
I've been following this thread, and it's starting to go over my head but would you fellows stay that this is a good camera to get as I jump up from a dslr? My thoughts are to get the mono one? Any advice would be appreciated.
Same question here, it looks to be my next big purchase. The question is , what is working and what is not ? Are all the problems related to SGP which I don't use anyway or has the ASCOM driver update polluted other capture apps as well ?
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  #374  
Old 16-06-2016, 08:55 AM
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codemonkey (Lee)
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Most of the issues are caused by the ASCOM driver. I don't see this as a reason to not buy the camera though. This is just teething issues. Software's easy to change, hardware not so much, so as long as the hardware's good, which it seems to be, then I wouldn't worry much.
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  #375  
Old 16-06-2016, 09:01 AM
glend (Glen)
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There are some problem with the ZWO ASCOM driver, and they have recommended rollback to version 1.0.2.5. Testing continues. SGP is where the problems mostly show up. It seems to relate to USB settings, with throttling back the speed helping reduce the problems. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, which is really frustrating. I tried out APT last night and it seems to work ok in traditional sub capture mode, using standard gain settings but seems extremely clunky after using SGP (then again it was free).
Remember this is a new camera, and there are no issues relating to hardware that i am aware of at this time. I would like to have Maxim DL which is what Sam (ZWO) used in dev testing, but i can't afford it. I am sure the driver issues will be sorted out as more people get cameras and test them and feedback info to ZWO.
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  #376  
Old 16-06-2016, 09:05 AM
glend (Glen)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiraz View Post
did you reload the basic driver as well as the ASCOM driver?

in Sharpcap, did you try to run it as a direct show camera? I have had no trouble with direct show, but I think it requires that the basic driver be in good condition. It might be a good idea to establish that the hardware is working properly by running Sharpcap/directshow, using the supplied USB3 cable, and without reference to ASCOM or SGP. If that works, try it as an ASCOM camera under Sharpcap (the direct show driver may set the chip up properly so that it works under ASCOM). If you can get it to run under ASCOM in Sharpcap, try SGP again and then move onto the extended USB hardware. That might give you some idea of where the problem(s) lie.

FWIW, I would guess that the various bits of software load registers in the chip to control the various functions, so unplugging and reconnecting the camera USB may also be worth doing if things play up - might possibly clear a register that is not in the right state
Ray i will try your suggestions tonight. I have just purged and reinstalled. Tonight looks to be my last chance for sky testing as the rain is coming back. Probably already affecting SA.
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  #377  
Old 16-06-2016, 05:46 PM
glend (Glen)
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Sam from ZWO emailed me today about my problems with SGP and the camera communications. He wanted access to my equipment via Teamview to debug and test. I thought about it but had to decline. I don't run Teamview, or even have a dedicated astro computer. At the moment, my laptop gets carried out to the observatory for imaging, but it is also my personal computer with all my stuff on it. I don't have a reliable wifi signal in the observatory, and no network of any kind cabled into it.

I am delighted he is trying to find a solution but i can't see how i could make that request work.
I have offered Sam anything i can supply in the way of settings in both SGP and the camera, drivers, etc even photos of the cable setup.
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Old 16-06-2016, 09:29 PM
glend (Glen)
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Test Run Conducted with SGP and APT

I have just conducted a comparison imaging run with the 1600 using SGP .15 and APT. The camera setup was identical for both, the original USB3 cable direct into my laptop. ASCOM driver was .5 as recommended by ZWO currently. Camera setting was Unity, with USB at 45 for both tests. Target was NGC 6188, which I have imaged before with SGP and the 1600 back when everything worked smoothly. I was shooting Ha subs of 300" in length. Focusing and Framign was done in SGP, and the Take One worked fine, and each of the short (10") sub focus and frame shots were clear and target visible.
The mount is an NEQ6Pro, the Scope is a Skywatcher MN190 Mak-Newt f5.3 . The same gear I used for previous successful runs. The mount was guided by a ZWO guidescope and an ASi130 as the guide camera as per the last couple of years of imaging.

The test run consisted of 8 x 300" Ha subs. Started first with SGP, and watched every single sub come up on the display and checked the histogram. The first two were fantastic, with clear definition of the object gas clouds, a good fat histrogram spread across the display, peak about 25-30% from the left side. The 3rd sub through the 7th sub were absolute garbage, the main stars were just visible and the rest of the image was just a patterned noise, all of these subs were identical. The histogram was way over to the left side - no significant signal data. Then suddenly the last sub in the sequence came good again and was the equal to the first two, in content and histogram.
So I had three random good subs out of eight.

I switched over to APT, same setup, 8 x 300" Ha subs, and I watched the subs as they came in. I did a short test sub and it looked fine with a good histrogram, then I started the sequence; the first one was good with the same fat histogram as SGP produced, then the second one was garbage, as was the third and fourth. I terminated the test at that point and went back and checked the output files for both runs. The good subs looked identical whether captured by SGP or APT, the bad subs also looked identical for SGP and APT - the same pattern noise and very low signal shoved way to the left on the histogram.

So my conclusion is that the problems with these ASI1600 images has nothing to do with the capture application, both SGP .15 and APT produced identical good subs and bad subs, but in different quantities and timing in the sequence.
The ASCOM driver .5 was set to the identical setting and USB level for both runs.

Where does this leave us? Well for me, its pointing to the camera and the camera driver/ASCOM driver. There is something very wrong in there. Why did this system (1600 and SGP) work flawlessly for three weeks of imaging and then suddenly stop? Is there a hardware fault that shows up after some hours are put on the camera? I can't say and it's not for me to solve. ZWO has some work to do here. I will cut this post and email it to Sam.

I am stopping any further use of this camera until I get some answers that make sense. I am sick of the frustation.
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  #379  
Old 16-06-2016, 10:33 PM
mountainjoo (Jerome)
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Is the histogram you're referring to in SGP the image histogram or the stretched histogram underneath it?
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  #380  
Old 16-06-2016, 10:58 PM
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Camelopardalis (Dunk)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by glend View Post
Sam from ZWO emailed me today about my problems with SGP and the camera communications. He wanted access to my equipment via Teamview to debug and test. I thought about it but had to decline. I don't run Teamview, or even have a dedicated astro computer. At the moment, my laptop gets carried out to the observatory for imaging, but it is also my personal computer with all my stuff on it. I don't have a reliable wifi signal in the observatory, and no network of any kind cabled into it.

I am delighted he is trying to find a solution but i can't see how i could make that request work.
I have offered Sam anything i can supply in the way of settings in both SGP and the camera, drivers, etc even photos of the cable setup.
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
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