Beginners unluck
Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:37 pm
Hello Robin
Great to have your fantastic piece of software and I am trying to understand as much as I can but with a slow learning curve. I am 73 years old, my astronomy experience is about 6 months, and I want to get into astrophotography. I purchased your software because of its simple interface but full of features to help me learn this subject.
I have a Meade LX200ACF 8" set up in my sliding roof observatory. On the end of the scope I have a attached a Meade microfocuser and this has the Atik 414ex camera attached. all wirings are set up okay. The camera USB cable is attached to a USB powered hub which is then connected to my adjoining warm room with a 5m USB cable which runs under the observatory. The scope is also attached to the laptop in the warm room via a long RJ11 cable with a RS232-RJ11 USB adapter. I use the Meade ASCOM Generic driver written by CJD and my camera appears under Atik cameras in SharpCap.
When I load SharpCap and select the Atik 414ex camera, all seems well apart from the Capture Display area. Initially this turns black and after a few seconds it turns completely white. I can see no image at all. I am currently trying this in the daytime, just to make sure everything connects and 'does what it is supposed to', but I do not understand why the Capture Display Area shows nothing. In fairness to this I have also run PHD2 with my StarShoot Autoguider and I cannot get that to show me an image either. I have also shone a torch down the telescope tune but this makes no difference. All the USB systems seem to be there in the Device Manager (Win10 64 bit laptop core I5 16GB memory). Can you advise on what to do?
Kind regards
Gerry
Great to have your fantastic piece of software and I am trying to understand as much as I can but with a slow learning curve. I am 73 years old, my astronomy experience is about 6 months, and I want to get into astrophotography. I purchased your software because of its simple interface but full of features to help me learn this subject.
I have a Meade LX200ACF 8" set up in my sliding roof observatory. On the end of the scope I have a attached a Meade microfocuser and this has the Atik 414ex camera attached. all wirings are set up okay. The camera USB cable is attached to a USB powered hub which is then connected to my adjoining warm room with a 5m USB cable which runs under the observatory. The scope is also attached to the laptop in the warm room via a long RJ11 cable with a RS232-RJ11 USB adapter. I use the Meade ASCOM Generic driver written by CJD and my camera appears under Atik cameras in SharpCap.
When I load SharpCap and select the Atik 414ex camera, all seems well apart from the Capture Display area. Initially this turns black and after a few seconds it turns completely white. I can see no image at all. I am currently trying this in the daytime, just to make sure everything connects and 'does what it is supposed to', but I do not understand why the Capture Display Area shows nothing. In fairness to this I have also run PHD2 with my StarShoot Autoguider and I cannot get that to show me an image either. I have also shone a torch down the telescope tune but this makes no difference. All the USB systems seem to be there in the Device Manager (Win10 64 bit laptop core I5 16GB memory). Can you advise on what to do?
Kind regards
Gerry