QHY247C issues

[ramdom]

I normally use Sharpcap to capture images which I then process in PI. The default parametres have usually worked well for me for my 163M but with the 247C, I'm having a lot of green in the images. I've been correcting it with post processing which is fine but I'm wondering about changing the default settings. The default white balance for RGB is set to 64 - for long, say 5 minute, exposures at a gain of 1000 (I understand unity gain is 2200 from other forums), the entire image turns white. Even with a 2 minute exposure, I get a very green image with an offset of 32.

I experimented with the white balance of 32 for RGB and it seemed to clip the histograms to the left for the 2 min exposures so I went with 48 which seems to be fine but still a greenish image (offset 16). I changed the G balance to 40 and the green and red histograms look okay but the blue one is shifted to the left now. So is there a way to figure out what balance settings are best to use with the right offset without trial and error?

A second issue I'm having is the temperature control working intermittently. Sometimes I connect the camera and power, which turns the fan on and I can hear it but the temperature says "100" regardless of what I do (manual or auto, etc.). Then when I disconnect and reconnect it seems to work as it normally does.

(I posted about the brain icon not showing for me in the general forum).

Thanks!

--Ram

[admin]

Hi,

I always tend to leave the white balance alone during capture and correct the colour balance during postprocessing or live stacking, so tinkering with the camera's white balance control is something I usually avoid. I think the only option you do have here is the trial and error approach that you've been using to get the right values.

If you want to help track down any potential problem with the cooler system then you'd need to turn on the extra diagnostic logging (bottom of the first page of the SharpCap settings) and then post the log from any session where the cooler plays up.

Cheers, Robin

[ramdom]

Hi Robin, I managed to turn the logging on while the bug was occurring - it created a Sharpcap.exe.log - is this the file you want or is there anything else? It doesn't seem to have much info in it...

--Ram

[admin]

Hi,

You should be able to find the log files from previous runs of SharpCap in this folder

Code: Select all

C:\Users\robin\AppData\Local\SharpCap\logs

(Just replace the Robin with your Windows username)

Those are the logs that I need rather than the SharpCap.exe.log. Note that turning on the additional logging while the problem is happening doesn't actually help, because the value of that setting that is important is the one at the moment that the camera is opened.

Cheers, Robin