Altair Hypercam 1600M Pro TEC Sensor Analysis fails

Discussion of features and issues relating to Altair Astro Cameras
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PeterJL
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Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:48 pm

Altair Hypercam 1600M Pro TEC Sensor Analysis fails

#1

Post by PeterJL »

Help Support!

I've done some testing as best I can and I've posted a video on YouTube of the Sensor testing I have done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz5dIIM0Dpk&t=18s

The first test is on a GP-CAM 290M (my Guide Scope) - Test succeeds at 2:24 with no problem. So using the same process and light source (Android Tablet) I tried to run the same on the Hypercam 1600M - everything goes fine until 5:45 when it asks for the sensor to be uncovered. I uncover it and place it back on the light source, I give it some time, but it does not detect the change. I do this a number of times, 6:38 onwards. In the end I increase the light source level around 7:48 and get it to proceed but then it freaks out.

Something is not right. I'm not saying that the testing conditions are laboratory perfect but the GP-CAM passes every time. I based my testing on this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AidhxeAJJ3s&t=13s which seems to work fine.

Kind Regards

Peter
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Re: Altair Hypercam 1600M Pro TEC Sensor Analysis fails

#2

Post by admin »

Hi,

Thanks for the detailed report on the video – it certainly looks like sometimes you are getting black frames from the 1600 M camera when you should be receiving a well illuminated image. Just occasionally a normal frame seems to come through instead of a black frame, but most of them are black which is tricking SharpCap into continually taking longer and longer exposures.

The first thing to try would be to see if turning down the USB speed control on the 1600 M helps resolve the situation. Setting that control to maximum will usually give the highest frame rate but can lead to stability problems, so it's definitely worth a try turning it down. If that resolves the situation then you are good to go. If not I would suggest seeing if you can replicate the same behaviour by manually adjusting the settings of the camera (rather than letting the sensor analysis do it). I don't think there's anything special that the sensor analysis does that couldn't happen just by you adjusting the sliders, but it would be good to be sure.

Cheers, Robin
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