Screen Suddenly Goes White

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admin
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Re: Screen Suddenly Goes White

#21

Post by admin »

Hi,

on the subject of getting the star into focus, you should find that if you turn the focus knob in one direction the doughnut shape becomes a larger and in the other direction it becomes a smaller, although that may be difficult to spot initially. It might take 10 or 20 or even more complete revolutions of the focus knob to bring the image into focus from the sort of situation that was visible in your video. If you are making substantial adjustments to the focus and still are really unable to see any change to the size of the doughnut then it's probably a good idea to temporarily cover the telescope with the lens Just to make sure that the image goes dark in response to that i.e. to make sure that the cameras updating the image correctly each new frame.

On the subject of the whiteout, actually, covering the telescope aperture with the lens Is probably a good idea there too – once the white image has appeared cover it up to exclude all light and see if that has any effect at all on the whiteout. I would also suggest pressing the snapshot button the next time the problem occurs to save a copy of one of the white images to file. As well as saving the image, SharpCap will save a small text file containing all the camera settings next to the image – if you could share both the image and the camera settings file with me via dropbox then I can check those to see if I can learn anything from them.

Cheers, Robin
js10
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Re: Screen Suddenly Goes White

#22

Post by js10 »

Okay, very good, will do. You know one other thing I've decided I'll do as well? Download Sharpcap onto my other laptop and try the same process with it as well. It's not a great laptop at all (horrible battery life), but should certainly last long enough to be able to test it. If I don't experience the same problem, that would, I would think, be fairly informative.
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Re: Screen Suddenly Goes White

#23

Post by admin »

Hi,

yes, a good plan to experiment with a number of variations to see if there is a pattern.

cheers,

Robin
js10
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Re: Screen Suddenly Goes White

#24

Post by js10 »

Okay, I got out again the other night, and it seems to be getting worse if anything. First of all, on the second laptop I brought with me as promised, Sharpcap didn't even pick up the camera at all -- I kept on clicking Rescan, but it never showed up in the drop-down menu. But that could simply be an issue with the laptop -- I don't know. But as for the original laptop I've been using it with, this time I couldn't even get the doughnut effect.

Something that occurred to me is that I shouldn't even really have to be out in the field in order to test this. That is, I just set up the camera indoors, thinking that there should be at least some output, such as if I suddenly put my hand in front of the camera/sensor. But even that didn't show any change on my screen. Is there anything specific I can do, even indoors like this, to provide definitive data on what's going on here? Thank you.
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Re: Screen Suddenly Goes White

#25

Post by admin »

Hi,

yes, you should be able to test this indoors.

Start with the camera dust cover on, so the sensor should be dark - open the camera in SharpCap and set a 10s exposure or so. You should get a black image, even with a 10s exposure. Let it run for 10-15 minutes and it should stay dark (with the frame count increasing at the bottom left).

Now uncover the sensor - you should get white images from the next frame onwards - even with very dim lighting a 10s exposure should be enough to get a fully white image.

Next step - cover the sensor again - check it goes dark after a frame or two.

On the subject of the second laptop - did you install the camera drivers from the camera manufacturers site?

cheers,

Robin
js10
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Re: Screen Suddenly Goes White

#26

Post by js10 »

Okay, I'll do the full test tomorrow night, but even before I do, a quick update. Regarding the other laptop and the drivers, no, I had not. I don't remember doing so with the original laptop but I guess I must have. Now that I did, though, yes, it is picking up the camera. Sure enough, I wasn't having a problem with the laptop newly-installed version of Sharpcap, so I figured the laptop must be the problem.

Then, however, I tried it again on the laptop I had been originally using it with. One thing I should note is that this time when I opened it, I received an error message box saying "it looks like SharpCap has stopped responding to the keyboard and mouse." and that I can chose to wait, close, or report the problem. I don't remember if I've seen this before and don't know if it has anything to do with the issues I'm having. But anyway, this time, indoors, when turning the Exposure slider way down, it seemed to behave normally. When I moved it around and even put my hand over it (the camera, that is), the screen did change color. But, again, not with the higher exposure, but that's probably to be expected. So, the bottom line is that that error message, I think, is interesting, but as I said, I'll do that full test tomorrow and see what happens.
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Re: Screen Suddenly Goes White

#27

Post by js10 »

Okay, I'm ready to report back now, and it seems to have passed all of your tests. That is, with the cap on 10-second exposures for exactly 15 minutes, I got an ALMOST completely black image, as in a few random dots/specks of light interspersed throughout the screen. The frame count at the bottom-left you mentioned was 87 after those 15 minutes, in case that tells you anything (I guess it should have been 90?). But, anyway, then I removed the cap and it did turn completely white, and then put it back again, and, as you said, it turned black after I think one frame.

So, this would, I suppose, indicate a lack of a problem with either the software or the camera (or cord, for that matter), correct? It's just kind of strange and frustrating that I experienced such a different result out in the field.

Lastly, for the record, I did NOT get that "stopped responding" error message when I first logged on this time, in case that has any impact. I guess this is something I will have to watch more closely.
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Re: Screen Suddenly Goes White

#28

Post by admin »

Hi,

that sounds like a good result - the 87 frames rather than 90 probably reflects some overhead around capturing each frame - ie the actual frame takes 10s, but there is a slight gap between one frame and the next.

Lets hope you see similarly good results the next time you have some clear skies!

Robin
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