Moravian C1X OSC Experienced users??

[SacredHeart]

Hello everyone, I don't post often but I have a question. Are there any experienced live stack users that have Moravian cameras?? C1X 26000 OSC camera?? Does it work just as easy as a ZWO camera?? I am getting ready to place an order for the C1X 26000 OSC camera, and want to be sure it works without ANY problems. Here in the US I kind of feel like a Lone Wolf, not many users here that I have found. Is there anything I need to do to get the camera to work in Sharpcap V4, or will it pop up in the menu to click on like my ZWO?? Thanks, Joe

[admin]

Hi,

best to try to find someone who knows for sure... I have Moravian support in SharpCap, but the cameras I have to test are the C1-1500, so I cannot be sure about the C1X model. You could always ping an email to Moravian support to ask them to check for you

cheers,

Robin

[SacredHeart]

Thank you Robin, I will do that. The camera support, is it natural or do I need to download drivers??

Thanks again, Joe

[admin]

Hi Joe,

there are Windows drivers that you will need - they come from Moravian. If you don't have them then the camera will show as 'Unknown Device' or similar in Windows Device Manager and will not be detected by SharpCap.

cheers,

Robin

[SacredHeart]

Thank you Robin. Joe

[paul07834]

I would like to resurrect this old post because I am now considering the purchase of a Moravian C1X OSC camera, and am wondering about the SharpCap support status of these newer cameras (I believe the internal electronics of the C1X and C3 series are the same). Is there anyone here who is using SharpCap with a Moravian C1X or C3 camera and, if so, what have been your experiences? Robin, do you know whether SharpCap supports the latest Moravian drivers? I did reach out to Pavel at Moravian Instruments but he wasn't sure about your support of their latest camera drivers.

Thanks in advance!
Paul

[admin]

Hi Paul,

well, the good news is that I did add support for the Moravian CX SDK a while back, so it will be in current versions of SharpCap 4.0 (and 4.1). However, I probably do need to do an update as the SDK version I am using is from September 2021, so it may not support the newest models.

Additionally, I don't have any CX cameras to test with, so if you do hit on issues, we may need to collaborate for a bit (bug reports sent to me, trial builds sent to you, etc) to get them ironed out.

cheers,

Robin

[paul07834]

Terrific news, Robin. Thank you.

If I run into any issues, I will be more than happy to work with you to iron them out.

Clear skies!

Paul

[MMys]

Wo probably solve problems within few past day. Problem was not in SharpCap. Solved with firmware upgrade and latest SDK. I work as tester (in my free time) of Moravian Instrument cameras here in Czech, now having fullFrame C3-61000 mono. Because all four C3/C1x 26000 and 61000 are the same hardware and almost identical sensor, there is quite sure, so 26000 is now OK too. I can have mono version at weeknd, so I will test it in SharpCap too. If mono will be OK, OSC will be too.

[paul07834]

Robin:

I finally received my Moravian C1×61000C PRO (IMX455) camera the other day and tried to get it working with SharpCap Version 4.0.9562.0 (I tried both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions, with identical results except that Live Stack would only work with the 64 bit version because the 32 bit version ran out of memory). I had only very limited success and my attempts generated a number of error dialog boxes which I believe may have sent reports to you. Let me explain what I have been doing and maybe you can help get me up and running.

My ideal set up is the following: a small PC (running Windows 10 64 bit) located on my dob to which the camera is attached by hard USB3 cable. That small PC is connected by a wifi network to my main control computer (running Windows 11 64 bit) upon which the camera drivers and SharpCap is installed. I use the VirtualHere software application to redirect the USB3 port on the small telescope-based PC over to the main computer. Until I got the Moravian camera, this setup worked fine with a Mallincam SkyRaider DS26cTEC camera (Direct Show driver).

When I first tried this setup, everything worked fine. The Moravian camera was on the list of cameras in SharpCap, and when I chose that camera, the control panel came up and I started getting 50 ms exposures (since this was during the day with the cover on the dob, all I got was pure black exposures). However, when I increased the exposure to a few seconds, SharpCap crashed and told me that the camera had disconnected. Repeated attempts to close and then re-open SharpCap produced crashes after 6 seconds, I never got any exposures at all in these subsequent attempts.

Always mindful that the VirtualHere/wifi setup may be an issue, especially with a camera pushing as much data as mine, I then placed the Moravian camera on another telescope closer to the main computer so I was able to use a hard USB3 cable directly between the camera and the main computer. After some initial glitches, this scenario worked fine at a number of different exposure times. Live Stack also seemed to work, although it only saved the first exposure and ignored the others (maybe because it was a purely black exposure that did not change?).

So, to confirm that the issue was in fact VirtualHere and/or the wifi, I loaded SharpCap and the camera drivers on the small dob PC, to which the camera was attached by a hard USB3 cable. To my great surprise, this setup immediately caused SharpCap to throw up an error message and close (same result over several attempts). I have attached the log file for one of these attempts. Things seem to start going wrong at time stamp 15:39:40.529754 #26.

Please note that the small PC on the dob is not a toy. Here is its description: Intel® i7-8565U 6 LAN 4G Fanless Security Gateway Appliance (MNHO-084) (DDR4 Memory: 16GB, Storage 1 (2.5" SATA SSD/HDD): 512GB SSD,4G (WWAN) / WiFi: 802.11 AX WiFi (2.4Gbps), Operating System & Firewall: Windows 10 Pro.)

Also of note is that I had loaded Moravian’s SIPS software on both computers. In all 3 scenarios outlined above, SIPS had no trouble connecting to the camera and generating exposures, even when SharpCap couldn’t.

Robin, please let me know if I can provide you with additional information.

Thanks in advance!
Paul