No colour Balance

Discussion of features and issues relating to Altair Astro Cameras
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Look left
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No colour Balance

#1

Post by Look left »

Just installed the Altair Hypercam 183c pro tec cooled camera . Image has green tinge during the daylight trial. Sharpcap does not have A Colour balance as the ZWO has when opening Sharpcap . Any advice? Sharcap 3.2 with Pro license.
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Re: No colour Balance

#2

Post by admin »

Hi,

The Altair cameras don't have the option of a colour balance when working in RAW mode (the idea of RAW mode is to save the data generated by the camera sensor with no modification so that it can be processed later). If you want to have a colour balance option with these cameras then switch them into the RGB mode (but note that this will mean larger saved image files and no access to the high bit depth modes of the camera).

The ZWO cameras do have the option to colour balance in RAW mode, but I would usually recommend avoiding using that option while capturing and performing colour balance after stacking and other processing.

Cheers, Robin
dudugaz
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Re: No colour Balance

#3

Post by dudugaz »

Hi,
Does this mean that in RAW mode (File Fits output) avoid white balancing with the recording of exposures for QHY cameras as for ZWO cameras ?
When we look at the manual of the QHY294c for example the application of the white balance seems a normal setting to make.
https://www.qhyccd.com/index.php?m=cont ... =30&id=212
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Dominique
Dominique
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Re: No colour Balance

#4

Post by admin »

Hi,

my preference is not to adjust the colour balance until you are post processing the image, but other people get great results doing it the other way. If you are adjusting the colour balance using the camera controls you have no idea how the cameras implementing that adjustment – if it's in digital space it could be throwing away information. A small number of QHY cameras have independent colour gains rather than digital colour balance controls - I have no idea whether other brands also work this way.

Cheers, Robin
dudugaz
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Re: No colour Balance

#5

Post by dudugaz »

Thanks Robin,
Since I have my QHY294c I have done the white balance as indicated in their doc. The results are pretty good. To do well on the same target would require a series with and a series without and see after preprocessing.In planetary with the GPCAM3 224c it was complicated to focus without. It is therefore first necessary to go through the RGB (RGB24) for this adjustment with a white balance.I was only surprised to see my very yellow .sers. In solar animations, some clouds can ruin things and I still have on my laptop some flare videos made with the QHYIII224c and recorded with the correct color balances. With the GPCAM3 224c this will prove to be a little less simple and more demanding in place.

Regards, Dominique
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chongo228
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Re: No colour Balance

#6

Post by chongo228 »

When I first got my 2600 I moved the settings to 50/50. I believe the factory settings with the ZWO driver are odd. Is there a way I can reset the white balance back to factory settings?

Or can someone tell me what the ASI2600mc settings are?
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Re: No colour Balance

#7

Post by admin »

Hi,

I think that the ZWO cameras tend to default to a high value for the blue balance (95?). My guess is that they do this because it gives the image a natural colour - if they default to 50/50 then there would be a lot of people who don't understand colour balance complaining that their cameras give green/yellow images.

If you hold the <CTRL> key down while opening the camera it may go back to the default values - for most brands it does, but I have a suspicion that the ZWO software may store the last values you have used, which might foil SharpCap trying to go back to defaults.

Robin
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