Beta 3.3 and ASCOM DSLR Driver

[rsauerbrun]

My primary imaging camera is a Canon EOS 70D DSLR and I have it working well with the ASCOM-DSLR driver and SC 3.3 beta. However, I have a few questions.

1. Is it possible to shoot in .AVI format? I have tried to change the output format, but only see .SER

2. I have the camera using the SC "Live View" mode, but rather than showing me a live view, it just takes a series of 5s shots. This makes it difficult to finalize both focus and framing of the image as I have to wait 5-10s between shots. I have used the ASCOM-DSLR driver utilities and have reset and chosen "Live View" as the method for the driver.

3. How should I set the camera's mode? Should I be using Bulb or Manual?

4. When shooting planetary, I seem to over expose everything. Do the "Auto" exposure settings work with the DSLR in SC?

Thank you in advance for your assistance ...

[admin]

Hi,

I think there is an option inside the Ascom driver setup for switching the camera between capturing still images using the shutter and capturing using the cameras live view function. This isn't the same as the button that turns live view on and off inside SharpCap. It sounds like you have the Ascom driver configured for still images in which case SharpCap will continually capture still images whilst SharpCap's live view button is activated. It's a little unfortunate that the two things have the same name for different features.

Hopefully, once you switch the Ascom driver into live view mode number of your other issues will clear up automatically – for instance I expect that SER is the only capture format option because the camera in still mode produces a high bit depth image which isn't compatible with AVI.

I'm afraid I haven't really used this driver very much except for quick testing, so I'm not sure about how you should set your camera settings – there is a thread over on Cloudy Nights that seems to hold the main discussion for this Ascom driver, which might be a better place to ask.

Cheers, Robin

[Fabioibirru]

Dear Robin,

after a while, i tried to repeat the sensor analysis on EOS 700D using the ASCOM DSLR Driver (the latest).

I did it during alpha test and after the first test fail you and FearLord updated SC and the ACOM Driver.

The second run was completed Ok and i forget this issue.

Today is raining and I tried to repeat the test using the last release both (SC and DSLR ASCOM Driver).

It fail for 3 times at the same point, during the increasing of ISO .
SC completed the ISO 100 step and when begin the ISO200 step it crash
The first 5 shots at ISO 100 was ok but at ISO 200 it stop working and the error is attched

The picture show immediately befor the crash

I tried also using 2 different PC running Win10 version 2004

Best regards

Fabio

[Fabioibirru]

UPDATE:

Using a brighter flat panel the test end up.

This last time I achieve 65% of adu histogram at ISO 100 with 600 ms instead of previous 1600 ms

Only near the end it show an error as in the picture

Best regards

[admin]

Hi,

Glad that you got the results in the end and thank you for the bug report – I can see what's causing that and will have it fixed for the next version.

Cheers, Robin