StarlightXpress H16 image artifacts

pmrid (Peter) · #1 03-11-2015, 05:23 AM

Here's something I haven't seen before and can't readily explain.

I did a swap of cameras yesterday and was in the early stages of an image run last night when I noticed this pattern of large squares - a regular grid of 4 rows and 4 columns - 16 squares in all - the whole image - delineated by faint white lines. Not an optical artifact.

It was warm- about 23C at the time. And these CCD's dont have a very powerful cooling system - in fact it's pretty poor. Even with the little bolt-on supplementary cooler SX provide it only manages to get down 37-38C below delta - at best. So last night it was running flat out and not getting below 13.5C. But those are hardly what you might call extreme conditions.

I wonder if anyone has encountered anything similar?

Peter

Slawomir (Suavi) · #2 03-11-2015, 06:21 AM

Hi Peter,

Sorry to hear about your issue with the camera. Did you mean negative 13.5C? Maybe it is interference from the power supply or voltage supplied in inadequate? Or the cable is damaged?

Might be worthwhile sending the image to SX. Guys at SX are very helpful - recently I accidentally fried my Lodestar and it got fixed and shipped back to me with FedEx from the UK free of any charges...it does not happen very often in this materialistic world.

Good luck Peter and please keep us posted

pmrid (Peter) · #3 03-11-2015, 09:48 AM

Thanks.

I have been in touch with Terry Platt at SX and I agree - he's terrifically helpful.

I did the usual eliminations by swapping out power supplies, USB cables etc and the results were the same. So I grabbed an updates driver set and this seems to have solved the issue - although I had been using the same (older) driver set for the past 6 months without issues. Who can fathom the weird and wonderful ways of USB connectivity? Certainly not I.

Peter

Slawomir (Suavi) · #4 03-11-2015, 11:39 AM

It's great to hear the pattern is gone

As for USB connectivity unexpected failure, well, I would be satisfied by blaming one of the countless Windows updates messing up with the computer...

LewisM · #5 03-11-2015, 12:11 PM

If this is the same PC you retroverted from Win 10 Peter, I suspect it was merely corrupt drivers or USBs. I once back-dated from Win8 to 7 on one computer, and it wouldn't properly connect anything until I reloaded/updated drivers for everything.