Very, VERY Red Live View

[Dave Manning]

Hi.
I've been using SharpCap Pro for a number of years now with absolutely no issues ........ unless I've created them myself and now, all of a sudden when I'm imaging Emission Nebulae and use Live View / Live Stacking with either the Antlia 5nm Dual Band or Optolong 3nm L-Ultimate filter (new purchase) with my ASI 2600MC Pro or ASI 6200MC Pro cameras the Live View is almost Completely RED with the target nebula barely visible.
Playing with the Histogram doesn't really change much.
Stacking the individual .Fit files in Pixinsight is fine.
It's only the Live View and Live Stacked image that is all RED which is really annoying!!!!
Live Views with the Antlia 5nm Dual Band filter used to be beautiful up until recently.

I've attached an example.

I'll be hooking everything up on the desk tomorrow to check the "Settings" in the top menu bar but I thought I'd ask here first.

Does this sound familiar at all?

Are there "Auto Stretch" settings or other settings that I should check to help rectify this?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Dave

[admin]

Hi Dave,

the things to check are

1) The colour balance settings in the camera controls on the right - particularly the WBR (white balance red) control. See if that has been turned up from the default of 50

2) The colour adjustments in live stacking to the right of the histogram - see https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.0/#Histogram%20Tab

If those controls are at their defaults and you are still 'seeing red' then try a daylight test with white paper over the end of the telescope - with white light going to the camera, you should see a vaguely white(ish) display when the exposure is set appropriately. You could try that with and without the various filters to see if one of the filters is causing the redness.

cheers,

Robin

[Dave Manning]

Thanks Robin.

I'll check those today.
Problem is that I didn't have this problem until recently.
Now, the data I took last night fails to Integrate in PI. That's an escalation of the problem .....

[Dave Manning]

Robin,

Here are the results of the tests you suggested, AFTER I upgraded to the latest version of SharpCap (probably shouldn't have done that yet....):
Filters used (where the RED issue showed itself...) are the Antlia 5nm Dual Band (Ant DB) and Optolong 3nm L-Ultimate Dual Band (L-Ult).

Attachment #1 The setup I used for the tests. GIOTTO Flat Field Generator with white paper inserted.

Attachment #2 "Test with Ant DB-paper & GIOTTO" - With "Image Controls" manually set to Defaults 50 & 50, image is Redish Green

Attachment # 3 "Test with Ant DB-paper & GIOTTO_IC to Auto" - Nice "whitish" display

Attachment # 4 "Test with L-Ult-paper & GIOTTO" - Image Controls manually set to Defaults 50 & 50. More of a Green.

Attachment # 5 "Test with L-Ult-paper & GIOTTO_IC to Auto" - Nice "whitish" display.

I'm assuming that these results are GOOD .... ???

Unfortunately I won't be able to find out with some actual imaging for a while as the weather here in Western Sydney is going to be RUBBISH for the next few days/nights.

[admin]

Hi Dave,

all of those images look pretty much as I would expect - most colour cameras tend to give the sort of yellow colour cast when illuminated with white light due to the higher sensitivity in the green and red parts of the spectrum compared to the blue. You can use the colour balance to adjust that out to a plain white - I prefer not to and to fix in post-processing, but both approaches can work.

I think it all looks like your camera is OK and the filter is not introducing any significant colour casts. Were you using darks or flats at the time of the problem? Flats in particular can create a colour cast if captured without the 'monochrome flats' option being ticked.

cheers,

Robin

[Dave Manning]

Hey Robin,

When I first noticed this I was using Master Flats and Darks while imaging.
I also noticed after going through some older data, that this has been getting gradually worse so I'll update the camera Drivers today as a precaution.
Once I do that I'll trash all my existing Flats and take a fresh set for each filter, namely L-Pro, L-Ultimate, Antlia Golden Dual Band (may remove from the FW soon), 3nm Ha, 3nm Oiii and 3nm Sii.
I'll make doubly sure that I tick the "Monochrome Flats" box.
HOPEFULLY I'll be able to try it all again on Saturday night.
The weather forecast for the week here is absolute RUBBISH for a while.

I'll let you know how that goes.

I can't thank you enough for your advice mate.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie ...... for the World Cup .......... HA!!!!!
Dave

[Dave Manning]

Robin,

After updating Camera Drivers and SharpCap I've been able to rectify the problem.
Before doing the updates "sliding" the RED way back in Image Controls didn't seem to do much at all.
NOW it fixes the problem completely.
It's interesting though that this was never an issue until recently.

Thanks so much for your expert advice mate.

Kindest regards, Dave

[admin]

Hi Dave,

glad to hear it is working now. Perhaps some odd combination of SharpCap version and driver version meant that the colour balance setting was not being applied correctly to the image?

cheers,

Robin