Hi to all. I recently bought a couple of cameras - retail therapy. They are a ZWO 185c and the SV432m. I downloaded the relevant drivers and even the ASCOM 7 - everything recommended by SVbony.
They are both recognised by the device manager and the ZWO is fine with Sharpcap. But, the SV432m just has a blank screen and no matter what I do to the settings it shows a blank screen. There is provision for a 5v 1A usb cable but I thought that was simply for cooling.
No matter what I do - tried 3 different cables and usb ports but nowt! Occasionally,it will 'error' and disconnect too.
Something I missed?
John
svbony sv432m
Re: svbony sv432m
It seems that if you faff about enough, you fix things.
OK - downloaded same drivers and the free Sharpcap to my notebook. Oddly, it wasn't recognised in the device manager. Plugged the camera in and it worked..odd
Went to the obsy for the umpteenth time and had a serious think....updates? Clicked on the help button, went to the update and it updated (I have 4.0 and 4.1 - 4.0 works with the SX Ultrastar better than 4.1...dunno why!) Anway, I plugged in the camera to the updated 4.1 and it worked straight away. Robin must grind his teeth sometimes when us technopillocks get in touch. So, hopefully all good.
John
OK - downloaded same drivers and the free Sharpcap to my notebook. Oddly, it wasn't recognised in the device manager. Plugged the camera in and it worked..odd
Went to the obsy for the umpteenth time and had a serious think....updates? Clicked on the help button, went to the update and it updated (I have 4.0 and 4.1 - 4.0 works with the SX Ultrastar better than 4.1...dunno why!) Anway, I plugged in the camera to the updated 4.1 and it worked straight away. Robin must grind his teeth sometimes when us technopillocks get in touch. So, hopefully all good.
John
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Re: svbony sv432m
Hi John,
glad you got it working after updating... An update of the manufacturer provided drivers and an update to the very latest version of SharpCap is always good practice if you have just bought a new camera, particularly if it is a relatively recently released model like the 432M.
cheers,
Robin
glad you got it working after updating... An update of the manufacturer provided drivers and an update to the very latest version of SharpCap is always good practice if you have just bought a new camera, particularly if it is a relatively recently released model like the 432M.
cheers,
Robin
Re: svbony sv432m
Robin and John (my doppleganger?),
It seems you (John) have the same name and same kit as me...a colour ultrastar, an asi185 and the sc432m....weird. You don't use a C11 with reducer, do you?
I bought my 432m to use with the C11 and a 0.5 x optec reducer. The spacing took some months to work out (UK rain etc) but it worked fine last night. I have the C11 on my Rowan AZ100 looking to do some EAA (it used to be video astronomy,but I adapted) mainly on little Planetaries....teeny little planetaries sometimes. But, last night was the first clear (near full moon) in weeks and I was itching to try the toys. Unfortunately I am as adept with mono cameras as I am with osc. It was a new learning curve. Sharpcap found the camera straight away and works very well with the AZ100 and the plate solving is a godsend (Robinsend...) so first PN was ngc2392 - the eskimo. Quite large and easy to see. I set the camera for 4 seconds and hit the Livestack button. What I saw after 3 or 4 iterations of 4 seconds reminded me of the old black and white Hale photos from the 60's. This camera collects a lot of detail with those big pixels. BUT.....then I tried to be clever and change some settings and hit one of the side buttons and lost the controls. I don't know what I hit but I could not get that control panel back. Eventually I shut it all down and restarted it - it came back in it's proper place.
So there's no shortage of us numpties with toys. I still can't use the settings to their full advantage but it's early days and I'll get there. I'm currently reading the 400+ page Sharpcap pdf. My wife refuses to print that much...
The camera is a keeper from what little I've seen and the resolution matches the C11 at 0.5x quite well. I need to take notes when I use it though to undo my technocockups. Keep at it John. John (aka Cugsy)
It seems you (John) have the same name and same kit as me...a colour ultrastar, an asi185 and the sc432m....weird. You don't use a C11 with reducer, do you?
I bought my 432m to use with the C11 and a 0.5 x optec reducer. The spacing took some months to work out (UK rain etc) but it worked fine last night. I have the C11 on my Rowan AZ100 looking to do some EAA (it used to be video astronomy,but I adapted) mainly on little Planetaries....teeny little planetaries sometimes. But, last night was the first clear (near full moon) in weeks and I was itching to try the toys. Unfortunately I am as adept with mono cameras as I am with osc. It was a new learning curve. Sharpcap found the camera straight away and works very well with the AZ100 and the plate solving is a godsend (Robinsend...) so first PN was ngc2392 - the eskimo. Quite large and easy to see. I set the camera for 4 seconds and hit the Livestack button. What I saw after 3 or 4 iterations of 4 seconds reminded me of the old black and white Hale photos from the 60's. This camera collects a lot of detail with those big pixels. BUT.....then I tried to be clever and change some settings and hit one of the side buttons and lost the controls. I don't know what I hit but I could not get that control panel back. Eventually I shut it all down and restarted it - it came back in it's proper place.
So there's no shortage of us numpties with toys. I still can't use the settings to their full advantage but it's early days and I'll get there. I'm currently reading the 400+ page Sharpcap pdf. My wife refuses to print that much...
The camera is a keeper from what little I've seen and the resolution matches the C11 at 0.5x quite well. I need to take notes when I use it though to undo my technocockups. Keep at it John. John (aka Cugsy)
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Re: svbony sv432m
Hi John,
glad you got to take advantage of the clear sky to try out your camera with some success
With the vanishing controls, you probably unpinned the control panel, which makes it slide away to the right of the screen, just leaving a small 'Camera Controls' label left. This makes it possible to use the whole screen for the image and bring the controls back when you need them by hovering the mouse over the little 'Camera Controls' label at the top right - they will slide back out when you do that, then hide again when you move the mouse out of them. You can also re-pin them when they have popped out - the pin button is just left of the 'C' of 'Camera Controls'. There does look to be a bit of an issue with them trying to hide themselves again in the latest version which I will check out.
Fortunately most of the controls can be ignored - the important ones are
* Capture Area - set to maximum for deep sky
* Colour space - MONO16 or RAW16 for deep sky for mono/colour cams respectively. (or 12/14 if that's what shows in the list - depends on camera).
* Capture format - what format to save in - FITS is usually a good choice for deep sky
* Exposure/gain - use these to adjust for image brightness
* Black Level/Offset/Brightness (all the same, but different names depending on brand of camera) - turn up if the histogram peak touches the left side of the histogram graph to avoid black clipping the image
cheers,
Robin
glad you got to take advantage of the clear sky to try out your camera with some success
With the vanishing controls, you probably unpinned the control panel, which makes it slide away to the right of the screen, just leaving a small 'Camera Controls' label left. This makes it possible to use the whole screen for the image and bring the controls back when you need them by hovering the mouse over the little 'Camera Controls' label at the top right - they will slide back out when you do that, then hide again when you move the mouse out of them. You can also re-pin them when they have popped out - the pin button is just left of the 'C' of 'Camera Controls'. There does look to be a bit of an issue with them trying to hide themselves again in the latest version which I will check out.
Fortunately most of the controls can be ignored - the important ones are
* Capture Area - set to maximum for deep sky
* Colour space - MONO16 or RAW16 for deep sky for mono/colour cams respectively. (or 12/14 if that's what shows in the list - depends on camera).
* Capture format - what format to save in - FITS is usually a good choice for deep sky
* Exposure/gain - use these to adjust for image brightness
* Black Level/Offset/Brightness (all the same, but different names depending on brand of camera) - turn up if the histogram peak touches the left side of the histogram graph to avoid black clipping the image
cheers,
Robin