Polar Alignment Camera Issues

[brada]

I have been using SharpCap with very good success since purchasing several months ago.
I use it with a Polemaster on a Windows 11 home and have had no issues.
I used it Saturday night and I was polar aligned in minutes, went great!
Tonight, I get by the first step and plate solves and seems to see plenty of stars.
After a delay, go to the next steip and I move the scope along the RA axis, it gives me some numbers to correct and then I move my mount and wait.
It takes a pretty long time to indicate that I even adjusted the mount.
I make another movement and then wait again.
Usually by the 3rd or 4th time, it stops or the gap is so large I give up. There is no changes to the numbers indicating I moved the mount.

The settings have been the same for multiple sessions but I did try adjusting the USB traffic, no changes no matter what I do.
The only thing I have done to my PC since Saturday was update NINA to the latest version.
No other programs were running and I only had a USB mouse plugged in besides the Polemaster.
As you can see from the photo, not many frames are being analyzed.
Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Brad

[admin]

Hi Brad,

in the bottom left of the screenshot I can see that the status bar is reading 'Previewing : 14 frames ... in 6m37s 0.0fps'. On the other hand your exposure is set to 1s, so you would expect a frame every second. This is a symptom of the frames not making it from the camera to SharpCap for some reason, probably USB related. SharpCap is updating every time it gets a new frame, but that's just not often enough

We do have a bit of a checklist for troubleshooting this sort of issue that is probably worth working through - see viewtopic.php?f=18&t=349&p=1556#p1556

It's definitely worth trying different USB cables, ports, etc to see if anything makes a difference - if you manage to find something that changes the system from broken to working then you are usually close to getting things fully fixed.

cheers,

Robin

[brada]

Robin,

That is why I posted the screen shot, I figured it was a USB problem coming from the Polemaster.
Unfortunately I cannot change the USB cable on the camera, it is proprietary.
I will check out your steps and might try hooking up the Polemaster to my Pegasus Advanced Power Box.
These types of issues are very frustrating and time consuming!

Thank you,
Brad

[brada]

Robin,

I got a chance to test my laptop, Sharpcap and my Polemaster this morning in my home office during the day.
Interesting results;
USB 1: Very few frames with PM plugged straight into the port.
USB 2: This worked as well but the frame rate was slower and the image was very different than the next 2. (Thought I tried last night twice)
USB 1: Used Pegasus Advanced Power Box with USB3 cable, PM plugged into USB2 worked great, also worked great plugged into USB3 on powerbox.
USB 2: Used Pegasus Advanced Power Box with USB3 cable, PM plugged into USB2 worked great.

I guess moving forward, I will always use the Powerbox with the Polemaster.
I will probably unplug when I am done to use less power especially when I am remote using my Bluetti.

Thank you,
Brad

[admin]

Hi Brad,

glad you found a workaround. Normally taking *out* hubs and extension cables is the best bet when troubleshooting, but just now and then it seems that putting one in fixes a problem. I have an external USB disk drive that works poorly when plugged directly into my PC, but works brilliantly via a USB3 hub...

cheers,

Robin