Moravian Instruments C1x/C3-61000 and 26000

[s2a]

Hi Robin,

Thanks for your prompt feedback!

• GPS: ok understood.

• Gain: dB!! Ok, note to myself: first switch brain on, than ask questions . Thank you! A table with some conversion values can be found here: https://www.gxccd.com/art?id=653&lang=409

• Sensor temperature readout: ok, thank you. Will test it as soon as the functionality is available.

• Offset: ok, check.

best regards,
Roger

[s2a]

Hi Robin,

Another question, are you able to do flat correction with your Moravian camera?
I just can't do it. It always ends up in an overcorrection.

FLAT.PNG (379.52 KiB) Viewed 39170 times

With my QHY-cameras it works fine in SharpCap. Is there anything special to consider here?

Best regards; Roger

[s2a]

Temp Control works now fine. Thank you very much!

Temp.PNG (39.19 KiB) Viewed 39165 times

CS; R

[s2a]

Hi Robin,
Another thing I noticed while beta testing SharpCap with my Moravian C1x.
Often when I set the capture area to predefined 957x638, there is some sort of offset on the right edge of the image.
The stars coming from the right disappear after a few pixels, and the stars in the main frame appear only after this line

Shift.PNG (610.07 KiB) Viewed 39156 times

I think you can see this best on the screenshot video here: https://youtu.be/qoiVCTykNXs
The only thing that helps then is turning the camera off and on (power off) and restarting SharpCap
CS; R

[admin]

Hi,

Ok, that sort of looks like a few pixel columns from the left hand side of the frame are being translated to the right side. This sort of thing would happen if the memory block being copied into SharpCap's version of the frame is misaligned somewhat.

The fact that it requires a camera power on/off to fix suggests it is coming from either the camera or the SDK , so probably best to raise this with Moravian and see what they thing. I have had a ZWO camera do a similar thing with the image offset to the side (in that case junk filled the side that the image had been shifted from).

cheers,

Robin

[s2a]

Hi Robin,

Two (hopefully) last questions about SharpCap in connection with Moravian C1x cameras.

As you know, I had problems with creating flats so far. The flat correction always led to an overcorrection. I have now figured out what the problem is, or at least how to prevent it. I have to create the flats with the option incl. dark flat files. Then it works. With my QHY together with the 4.0 version this was not necessary. Does this work differently in the 4.1 version?

And the second question: While binning, Moravian reduces the amount of data only in connection with hardware binning. I can use software binning via SharpCap, but the amount of data that is downloaded and thus the possible fps is not reduced.

Hardware binning is activated by a corresponding entry in cXusb.ini. Do you know where to place this cXusb.ini when using the camera in normal mode, without ASCOM driver together with SharpCap? I don't know how to do this.

Thanks a lot and best regards
Roger

[admin]

Hi Roger,

the over-correction from flat frames when not using a dark (or bias for relatively short exposures) is down to the correction being applied also to the pedestal ADU value that the camera produces for black pixels - perhaps that was smaller on the QHY camera so the effect was less noticeable? You can usually get away without it if you are using flats for dust specks in lunar/solar/planetary imaging as you tend not to stretch the image, but for deep sky the use of dark flats and darks to ensure the flat correction works properly is pretty much required.

On the subject of the cXusb.ini - no idea I'm afraid - I have never used it. I'd try the SharpCap install folder as a first guess. If that doesn't work you could try using 'ProcMon' from SysInternals (part of Microsoft) to monitor the file access made by SharpCap - search through the log for cXusb.ini and see where the Moravian code is trying to load it from.

cheers,

Robin

[rroth]

Hi Robin,

first of all... thanks to the fantastic job you are doing with SharpCap! I have been a happy user for several years now using all kinds of cameras from QHY and ZWO (mainly for solar and deepsky/EAA) and SharpCap was always outstanding.

I have now switched to a Moravian C1x 61000 Pro camera at one of the setups and I got things working well, except for for one little detail related to the filter names when using the direct driver.

Everything works perfectly fine when using the ASCOM drivers for camera and filter wheel. When connecting to the camera via the direct driver, SharpCap automatically connects the filter wheel with the "Moravian On-Camera Filter Wheel" and sets the filter wheel information in the Settings / Hardware tab to "None". The filter wheel works completely fine... the only drawback is that the individual filters are labeled "Filter 1"... "Filter 9" and not with their proper names set via the Moravian configuration tool.

You mentioned this as expected behaviour in an earlier discussion with MMys (post #38 in this thread) and recommended to set the filter names manually in SharpCap. However, I have not found a way to do this...

Probably I am just not seeing the obvious, but how can I manually set the filter names (given that the "None" setting in the Hardware tab does not allow me to access the properties button)?

All of this refers to the most recent version of SharpCap (v4.1.11137) and up-to-date versions of all the Moravian drivers and camera firmware. I have attached two log file for a run with ASCOM and with the direct driver, respectively.

Thank you very much for your help and keep up the great work!

Cheers,
Robert

[admin]

Hi Robert,

glad that the support for the C1x cameras is largely working well for you.

I have just checked the code and SharpCap does try to ask the Moravian SDK for the filter names, and it substitutes in 'Filter 1', 'Filter 2', etc when those names come back as blank.

I can think of a few possibilities as to why this might be happening

1) A bug in SharpCap's code around this - I don't have a Moravian camera with filter wheel to test with, so can't be 100% sure I have it right
2) Possibly an out-of-date version of the csusb/gxusb SDK from Moravian instruments (you could download the latest version and copy it over the files in the SharpCap install folder to test)
3) You haven't set the filter names yet in a way that is compatible with SharpCap fetching them.

For option 3, I am thinking that it may be possible that while the ASCOM driver for the wheel lets you set the filter names, maybe it stores them in some ASCOM storage location, not in the way that the Moravian SDK expects. I am guessing that there should be some software provided by Moravian that lets you control the camera directly and maybe that lets you set up the filter names. It may be worth trying the 'tool for setting up filters' on this page (https://www.gxccd.com/cat?id=150&lang=409) or the SIPS program to see if you can configure the filter names.

If none of that works we can try asking the guys at Moravian

cheers,

Robin

[rroth]

Hi Robin,

thanks for your detailed and very helpful reply! Long story short: Option (2) does the trick!

The latest SharpCap version ships with the cxUsb.dll library version 4.14. The present SDK from the Moravian website is version 4.15. Just replacing the cxUsb.dll in the SharpCap directory with the cXusb.dll contained in the SDK fixed the problem. The filter names now appear directly when connecting to the camera via the direct driver.

It might be that the problem does not show up for others with previous versions of the C1x or C3 cameras. Moravian changed the electronics board and published new camera firmware versions along with it. Maybe this is why the library also changed.

Regarding point (3): All the filter setting (names and focus offsets) are defined in Moravians "Gx Camera Filter Configuration" program, which installs automatically with the SIPS/ASCOM. The ASCOM driver and also SIPS manages the filter settings via this tool. When I connect the camera and filter wheel via ASCOM in SharpCap the "Setup" button in the filter panel also opens this program. The "Tool for setting of number of filter positions..." really only does what it says, it tells the camera how many slots the filter wheel has and is only needed if the filter wheel is changed.

Thanks again... now the C1x is working perfectly well

Cheers,
Robert