Capture settings taken from the wrong camera when the main one uses ASCOM

[RazvanUnderStars]

SharpCap 3.2.6383.0 (I don't know if the bug was present in previous versions, I had not tried this) on Windows 10.

I have two cameras, a ZWO ASI294MC Pro for imaging and a ZWO ASI174MM Mini as a guider. In the past I used both with the native ZWO drivers and all worked well.

Last night I used the 294 with the ASCOM driver - an approach suggested elsewhere to avoid white balance issues with PixInsight later (because of the WB parameters saved in FITS). I had renamed the camera in the ASCOM settings from the default "ASI Camera (1)" to "ZWO ASI294MC Pro - ASCOM".

When only this camera is connected, everything works correctly. And as said earlier, when both cameras use the native drivers, everything is ok as well.

And here's the bug:

1. both cameras were connected to the computer (like in the past). SharpCap is not running.
2. Start SharpCap.
3. From the Cameras menu, select the ZWO ASI294MC Pro - ASCOM camera in the ASCOM Cameras section of the menu.
4. Look in the Capture Format and Area section. The colour space and resolution are actually coming from the 174MM camera: the colour space is MONO16 (and no other option is available). The capture area shows the resolution of the 174MM camera instead of 294MC. The output format is not as expected (should have been FITS not SER).

The problem was repeatable. I captured a debug log that contains the following: starting SharpCap and selecting the ZWO ASI294MC Pro - ASCOM" camera. I'm including the full log.

The only workaround I could use was to disconnect the 174MM camera, start SharpCap, connect to the 294MC camera and only then reconnect the 174MM.

I'm including a screenshot showing the mismatch and, in case it's useful. a screenshot of the ASCOM cameras.

Let me know how else I can help, this is an easy problem to reproduce and I can do it indoors as well easily.

Thanks.

incorrect cameras.png (321.76 KiB) Viewed 835 times

ASCOM cameras.png (159.23 KiB) Viewed 835 times

[admin]

Hi,

I think the fact that the latest version of SharpCap (6.2 .6383) updated the version of the ZWO SDK is probably not a coincidence to this starting to occur.

My first suggestion would be to try updating your Ascom driver for the ZWO cameras to the very latest version (there's a new version on their website that is dated 29 June – the same date as the new SDK that SharpCap uses). I suspect that having two different versions of the SDK running inside SharpCap may be the cause of the problems that you are seeing.

Hope this helps, Robin

[RazvanUnderStars]

Hi Robin,

Thanks for the quick reply. I do in fact have the very latest version which I installed on June 30th, prior to testing what I tried above.

To be sure, I checked the directory where the drivers are and I'm including screenshots with the version of each. Please note that I don't know if the problem was present before, I had never tried this particular scenario.

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\ASCOM\Camera\ZWO>dir
2020-06-17  05:32 PM           328,192 ASCOM.ASICamera2.dll
2020-06-17  05:32 PM           328,192 ASCOM.ASICamera2_2.dll
2020-06-17  05:30 PM         1,201,152 ASICamera2_ASCOM.dll
2020-06-17  05:31 PM         1,543,680 ASICamera2_ASCOM_x64.dll
2020-06-17  05:32 PM            23,040 ColorSlider.dll

ASICamera2_ASCOM_x64.dll.properties.png (26.97 KiB) Viewed 828 times

ASICamera2_ASCOM.dll.properties.png (26.68 KiB) Viewed 828 times

ASCOM.ASICamera2_2.dll.properties.png (28.13 KiB) Viewed 828 times

ASCOM.ASICamera2.dll.properties.png (28.3 KiB) Viewed 828 times