Had an unexpected problem with my new QHY533M camera -- was getting setup to image M33, wanted to try 'click to recenter' after two successive platesolve/synch. Had image of m33 on screen but a tad offcenter, expected that when I double clicked the point I wanted to be in the center of the frame, that would happen. Got a new display overlay with some radial lines and text. Double clicked on the galactic center, image vanished but the radial overlay remained. From that point on I could no longer see the camera image. Clicking on live view did nothing -- got note that the camera is in single mode (??). Tried a number of captures and deep sky sequences but was unable to view image. Also, was surprised that sharpcap would write out image files but seems unable to read them. Am hoping this is just some NOOB user error on device, but it brought my work session to a halt.
Any thoughts?
Lost Camera Image on recenter
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Re: Lost Camera Image on recenter
Hi,
there are quite a number of possibilities here, so it might need some testing to work out what is going on.
First, I'm not sure if you deliberately had your camera in still mode or not. You can toggle between still and live mode by using the 'live view' button at the left of the toolbar. If you are in still mode and just want to capture an image to show on screen (not save it), use the 'Framing Shot' button.
As to why the images vanished, the possibilites here range from the camera stopping responding through to various settings being changed accidentally or due to a bug, causing the image to go dark. Keep an eye on the frame count in the bottom left corner - if that is going up then images are coming from the camera. If it is stuck then the camera may not be sending any images.
If you are getting images from the camera but they are black then check things like exposure/gain and also the display stretch settings which can end up making the image darker than expected (or perhaps they were making it brighter but then got put back to default). Sometimes it is worth resetting the camera settings - close the camera and re-open with CTRL pressed down. There was a bug with QHY cameras where setting a zero gamma could make the image entirely black, but recent versions of SharpCap disallow that value from being set.
Another good idea if you encounter the problem again is to grab a screenshot showing the main SharpCap window including the controls - it's entirely possible that there is something that isn't obvious to you that might be clear to see in a screenshot.
Hope this helps a bit,
Robin
there are quite a number of possibilities here, so it might need some testing to work out what is going on.
First, I'm not sure if you deliberately had your camera in still mode or not. You can toggle between still and live mode by using the 'live view' button at the left of the toolbar. If you are in still mode and just want to capture an image to show on screen (not save it), use the 'Framing Shot' button.
As to why the images vanished, the possibilites here range from the camera stopping responding through to various settings being changed accidentally or due to a bug, causing the image to go dark. Keep an eye on the frame count in the bottom left corner - if that is going up then images are coming from the camera. If it is stuck then the camera may not be sending any images.
If you are getting images from the camera but they are black then check things like exposure/gain and also the display stretch settings which can end up making the image darker than expected (or perhaps they were making it brighter but then got put back to default). Sometimes it is worth resetting the camera settings - close the camera and re-open with CTRL pressed down. There was a bug with QHY cameras where setting a zero gamma could make the image entirely black, but recent versions of SharpCap disallow that value from being set.
Another good idea if you encounter the problem again is to grab a screenshot showing the main SharpCap window including the controls - it's entirely possible that there is something that isn't obvious to you that might be clear to see in a screenshot.
Hope this helps a bit,
Robin
Re: Lost Camera Image on recenter
I did try toggling the 'live' button a few times but got the message back that the camera was in 'still' mode. I have never used that button previously. And the 'frame' button didnt work either. On an offchance, I tried collecting some images through capture and deep sky capture and they were all fine, allowing for conditions. And by the way, I was surprised that Sharpcap wont display the images that it has captured and written to disk.
g
g
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admin
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Re: Lost Camera Image on recenter
Hi,
you can re-display previously saved images using either the 'Test Camera 1 (Deep Sky)' camera to select a single previous image or the 'Folder Monitor Camera' to work through a whole folder of them. See https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.0/#Virtual%20Cameras for more info.
If you see the problem happen again, do keep an eye on the frame count bottom left to see if it is going up, and grab a screenshot of the whole of SharpCap for me please.
thanks,
Robin
you can re-display previously saved images using either the 'Test Camera 1 (Deep Sky)' camera to select a single previous image or the 'Folder Monitor Camera' to work through a whole folder of them. See https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.0/#Virtual%20Cameras for more info.
If you see the problem happen again, do keep an eye on the frame count bottom left to see if it is going up, and grab a screenshot of the whole of SharpCap for me please.
thanks,
Robin