No color using ZWO asi 294 MC color camera

[Moonstruck]

I have a ZWO asi 294 MC color camera, and all images appear black and white using Sharpcap. Is there a special setting in Sharpcap I need to change to get color to appear?

[Menno555]

On the right, under Capture Format and Area, there is a drop-down menu besides Debayer Preview. When you choose there On, it should be color again.

Menno

[Moonstruck]

I have the "debayer preview" on, but there is very, very little color... I have it pointed at some pine tree branches in my yard, which should be green, and they only appear grey. I tried adjusting the gain and exposure but that did not bring in the color. Any other ideas on what could be wrong?

[admin]

Hi,

there are other camera settings that might affect this, for instance some of the binning settings can affect colour, and there are also colour balance settings. Perhaps if you could send a screenshot showing the image and the camera settings visible on the right, we could advise further.

cheers,

Robin

[Moonstruck]

Hi, I attached a screenshot showing the black and white pine tree branch. These pine needles should be bright green!!

[admin]

Hi,

I think that is pretty much as it should be - if you grab part of that image and boost the saturation you can definitely see the green. You could try changing the colour balance values back to defaults (Red=50, Blue=50), which will perhaps help a little.

What you have to remember is that these cameras see colour quite differently to the human eye. When you use a phone camera or a diginal camera, the software on the camera does a lot of processing of the image to make it look nice to our eyes - to make it look like the scene as we see it. Astronomy cameras are designed from a different perspective - produce data exactly as the camera measured the light coming from the target. That can often mean that the colours look wrong (unsaturated on some cameras, green cast on others, etc). That can all be fixed in image processing. It's better to capture/save the image without the processing and then apply it afterwards, rather than capture it with the colour processing and then be basically stuck with that.

cheers,

Robin

[Moonstruck]

Thanks - I'm not sure how to change the color balance back to defaults (red=50 and blue=50) in Sharpcap. What menu items are they, and how do I do it? And how do I boost saturation? Or, is this done during processing in a program other than Sharpcap?

[admin]

Hi,

the colour balance controls are shown in the 'Image Controls' section of the camera controls - visible in the bottom right of the screenshot you shared above. Unselect the 'Auto' button for each then move the slider manually to give a value of 50%

Adjusting saturation is something that you would do in a separate processing application after you have captured in SharpCap.

cheers,

Robin

[eugenrau]

The fellow above seem to proceded right, but had no color.I have the same problem with Zwo 294 Mc (uncooled), Sharpcap Pro, Win 10Pro. No color, despite I saw colors on screen when saved ("save with adjustments" and "save exactly as seen").I made pictures in different sessions when I was going out.Deep mistery,between pictures I have only 1 (one) colored picture of Moon, nice orange-yellow. Last time I used PNG and RAW16, debayering "On".I am strugling from two months, tried different settings and opened saved pictures with Photos, IrfanView, Gimp, Pipp as different persons adviced me.I followed many advices: to save only from main histogram side, not to use Fits, Tiff , RGB24 and other tens of (seemingly after me, beginner crazy) ideas.Nobody knew what the problem is or what to do. Beginning with Dobsonian Power community members and...ending with my excuses, you.
I not come close to my laptop feeling it as a sure source of remembering same problem and getting angry again and again and again.

[eugenrau]

I put in PIPP some PNG and see what get out, monochrome!? pictures despite I set in Sharpcap output format PNG with RAW16, PIPP is tourning in BMP monochrome !! :
PIPP x64 (v2.5.9)
Processing: (Test Run)
Input files:
C:\Users\Eugen\Desktop\SharpCap Captures\2023-10-13\Capture\01_23_08\Capture_00002.png
Estimating input frames:
Total input frames: 1
Processing 1 frames:
Summary:
PIPP version: v2.5.9
Total input frames: 1
Total output frames: 1
Output Frame Type: Monochrome
Output Frame Format: BMP
Output Directory: C:/Users/Eugen/AppData/Local/Temp/pipp_testrun/

Runtime: 0.9 seconds
PROCESSING COMPLETE
I noticed that I had Sharpcap 4.0 PRO so I deleted and Installed latest Sharpcap 4.1 PRO but with any changing or help.