Problems with ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

Discussions of Electronically Assisted Astronomy using the Live Stacking feature.
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markj57
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2020 6:24 pm

Problems with ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

#1

Post by markj57 »

I have been using Sharpcap for live EAA events and AP successfully for about 9 months. I've used a ZWO294MC Pro, ZWO174MM and ZWO462MC with no problems. Live events are great and my AP is steadily improving.

I just got a ZWO2600MC Pro and expected it to significantly out perform my 294MC Pro, but frankly the images suck and it's unusable for live events or AP. I am connecting a sufficient power supply to the 12V port.

The camera works in general. I can point it at a distant mountain and see as sharp image. I can set the cooler for -15C and it gets there. Gain, exposure etc seem to work fine.

What I'm seeing at night when pointed at M81 or M45 for example, is I can see and focus on the object, but if I want a black background I need to adjust the histogram sliders such that all I see is the core of M81 (no arms) or the stars in the Pleiades (no nebulosity). Either I can see the galaxy and its arms BUT the background is a bright gray (or blue or red or green, see below), OR I have a nice black background and have no detail whatsoever in the target.

I did some A/B comparisons with the same exposure times and the ZWO294 SIGNIFICANTLY out performed the ZWO2600 in all tests (Rosette, M33, M81, M45).

The other thing I noticed was a big difference when looking at the live stacking histogram. When you click on the lightning bolt stretch button to align the RGB peaks, with the 294 I'd typically get a high narrow peak with a rounded top, where I could ensure the RGB peaks were all aligned. I'd center my black level line on the peaks and adjust the mid level so it was just right of the black level and have a very pleasing live image. I could stack for a period of time and get a great astrophoto result.

Trying this with the 2600, I got even narrower peaks but the tops were not rounded, they were spikes, and no matter what I did I could not make all three RGB spikes align. They got close, but one was always slightly right or left of the others. I ended up with a noticeable red, green or blue background, and no amount of fiddling with it could help. When I tried to place the black level line, either one spike was to its right or the image was too dark. If I pushed the black level past the peaks to the right, the whole image was too attenuated to see detail.

The one thing I did not do was update my ZWO drivers to the new (Dec 2020) version, I did that this morning but don't think that would cause these types of issues (?)

My gain was generally set at 0 or 100, though in desperation I've tried everything up to 700 and it didn't help.

Any other recommendations? I'm at my wits end here.

Thanks

Mark

Sharpcap version 3.2.6480.0 (updated March 6)
Windows 10 Pro V 2oH2 OS 19042.804 i7 16GB 64 bit
TEC140ED APO on TTS-160 mount with rOTAtor
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Re: Problems with ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

#2

Post by admin »

Hi Mark,

I have personally not had any experience with that model of camera, but plenty of people here have been using it and I've used a camera with the same sensor from a different vendor with some success too. I suspect that it may be some subtlety in the camera settings – perhaps if you could share a screenshot showing SharpCap, the image and in particular the settings you have selected on the right-hand side something might jump out. If we are lucky somebody who uses this camera might chip in with some helpful suggestions.

Cheers, Robin
nomismatokopio
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu May 20, 2021 4:26 am

Re: Problems with ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

#3

Post by nomismatokopio »

Hi Mark,

I recently acquired an asi2600mc and I have issues similar to yours in Sharpcap. May I ask if you found any solutions?

Best regards,
Chris
Rab722
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2020 12:20 pm

Re: Problems with ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

#4

Post by Rab722 »

I have the 2600mc and get great results.

My general settings are
Color Space = Raw 16 bit
Exposure = 3min to 5 min
Gain = 0 or 100
Brightness = 10
White Bal (R) = 50
White Bal (B) = 50
Cooler = -5 ( this value is easily achievable all year round and results in very low noise)

If I was doing EAA I would use shorter exposure times of maybe 15s to 60s and bump up the gain to compensate. The gain values are logarithmic (db x 10). Each increase of 60 on the gain slider doubles the real gain, so I think

60s at 0g = 30s at 60g = 15s at 120g

If you run the sensor test it will produce a table with the gain values.

I leave the white balances at 50 which normally gives a greenish tone to the stack but then use the live stacking sliders to align the peaks and get the color balance. For some reason the automatic color aligning buttons below the slider are not working very well, but you can click above or below the slider button to make a small step up and down.
nomismatokopio
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu May 20, 2021 4:26 am

Re: Problems with ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

#5

Post by nomismatokopio »

Hi,

I’m happy you get good results with the 2600mc, and thanks to share your settings. I will try these as soon as I have clear skies to see if there’s improvements.

Regards,
Chris
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