ZWO gain settings - SGP versus APT

[g__day]

Folks wondering what are default versus good settings to use for Magnitude 4 - 7 targets on 4" - 5" refractors using ZWO 71MM-c and 1600MM-c cameras.

I didn't pay much attention to this - but it seems using APT on the 71MC shooting NGC 5139 - it defaulted to 0 Gain on some shots and 100 on others, but SGP defaulted the 1600MM on 240.

Deep Sky Stacker saw 60+ 2 minute light frames on the 71MC - but only registered and stacked 22 of them???

Still trying to figure out the best configuration settings - any advice greatly appreciated!

[g__day]

A bit more of an update on APT versus SGP behaviour

APT - the user can specify the gain that is desired per shot

SGP - the gain seems to be selected when you connect to the camera by the driver

Now for I found with a gain of 240 selected by the 1600MM-c ZWO driver (from a choice of 3 defaults plus a user selects option) - the Red, Green and Blue images are fine - but the Luminance shots are totally blown out.

Is there a way in SGP to specify a much lower gain for luminance shots?

[g__day]

So the response from the SGP forums was swift and clear!

When setting up your events if you click on the little “gear” icon it will open parameters for that event, one option is “event gain” and you can adjust it there. One thing to note though, It will set the gain in the driver so any events after will remain at that gain. You will need to specify the gain in the next even if you want it different for the remaining events. Again, the gain will be set in the driver from the last event so even after restarting the computer, it will remain at whatever the last gain setting was set to.


There are 3 places to set the gain.


the camera driver
in equipment profile
event parameters.
If you set the gain in the equipment profile, it will override the driver gain and if you set the gain in the event, it will override the equipment profile gain.

An option is, if you want the RGB gains all the same set that gain in the equipment profile (under the camera tab) then you should only have to change the gain in the events for the luminance filter and it should default back to the RGB gain for any event after if you don’t specify in the other events.

* * *

So I have set that up to do two luminance runs - one at gain 0 offset 50 and one at gain 100 offset 50, followed by Red, Green Blue at gain 240 offset 50.


I picked the offset from the ZWO driver itset - for low medium and high gain settings for this camera - all the offsets (under teh advanced tab) were defaulted to offset 50.

[Startrek]

Issues with DSS

Here ya go …..

See attached
They will work for any DSLR or OSC camera


Cheers
Martin

[g__day]

Many thanks - some good advice there - plus a few things I was caught up on!