LPI / AutostarSuite Image acquisistion freezes.

[JohnH]

Grrrrr...my nice shiny new LPI is giving me some grief - for some reason the image acquisition software freezes occasionally. This has happened several times and continued to happen last night after I had updated to the latest version of the software (v3.18). I am running windows XP SP1 and have plenty of memory (768Mb) and hard disk free (5gb+). The problem seems to happen after hitting the STOP button and closing a file. The live update just freezes, I have to kill the app using task manager - it seems ok after a restart. Happened about 3 times out of 30 images last night. Checked the Meade site and it mentioned poor USB connection, I will try a different USB cable to the one suppied in the box tonight and see if it makes any difference.

[davidpretorius]

not sure if this related, i have recently purchased a logitech quick cam that is usb. It works beautifully inside and i can view thru windows explorer or its own sofware. I took it outside at night and then it seems to stop. nothing short of a reboot frees up the camera for restarting. I have windows XP SP2. I was very surprised at how hard it was to try and stop the drivers for the usb camera. If it stuffs up for whatever reason, then it means reboot. Takes me back to Windows 95 days!

[mick pinner]

mine did exactly the same thing intermitently for the first week l had it then it stopped and has worked perfectly ever since.

[JohnH]

Mick,

Odd, I tried another cable and it did not work at all, switched back to the supplied one and no problems, at least tonight. I did not take quite so many shots but had no freezes at all. Seeing seemed poor however I did get a couple of shots in...

[davidpretorius]

nice close up, though, what sort or eye piece for this close up?

[JohnH]

Barlow x2 (Orion shorty) and LPI (eq =4mm EP) on an ETX 90 (FL=1250mm), gives approx mag of approx 600x for that shot I think.

[iceman]

That's an excellent shot John, you should post it in the solar system forum. There's a lot of detail there and stood up well to some extra processing..

Hope you don't mind..

[JohnH]

Thanks Mike I will...and I am happy to accept any tips/advice re post processing....