Capture area problem

[MikeSki]

Hi. I'm using SharpCap Pro (v4.0.9538 64 bit on a Windows 10 desktop computer. I'm connected to a QHY163m camera using Ascom 6.6.1 device hub. My problem is that I bring up SharpCap and do a LiveView using the full sensor size (4656x3522). Since I am doing planetary imaging, I then shrink the capture area down to say 800x600. If I toggle LiveView (not sure if I need to do this) and then try to change the capture area to something bigger than 800x600, no larger options are available in the Capture Area pull-down. If I try to reload the original Capture Profile, I get the message "The capture profile could not be loaded corrrectly. I then have to shut down SharpCap and restart to get a larger image area.

Am I doing something wrong? Should I need to click on Live View to get repeated images? Why can't I change the image area? This also happens with my QHY163c camera.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

[admin]

Hi Mike,

that's not how it's supposed to work

Can you try a couple of things for me please to see if they help...

1) Select Live View before opening the camera, so that when it first opens it is in live view mode. Don't try changing live view after that, just adjust the capture area to 800x600 and see if the larger resolutions are still available

2) Try SharpCap 4.1 - lots of new features, bug fixes and updates to the QHY camera SDK too, which might help : https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/downloads

If neither of those help, then please post a log from SharpCap captured after the problem happens (in 4.1 please - I am no longer updating 4.0)

cheers,

Robin

[MikeSki]

Hi Robin,
I updated SharpCap to 4.1 as you requested. I then repeated the same sequence and had the same problem. In fact, there were several other issues that I saw and I thought it would be quicker to just send you a screen capture video so you can see what I'm seeing. Follow the dropbox link below to my video. I can send the log file too if that would help.

Thanks,
Mike Leemhuis



https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0wth12g2 ... b8d4m&dl=0

[admin]

Hi Mike,

thanks for sharing the video and the offer of sending the log file - fortunately I found that one of my QHY cameras here does show the same issue when switching in/out of live view with an ROI set (the first two I tried worked fine, so it is most likely some oddity in the way that the QHY SDK works for certain cameras, since the SharpCap code will be the same for all 3).

Now that I can break it, I have a decent chance of being able to fix it (or if I can't fix it for some reason I can pass the issue on the QHY).

I will report back once I have had a proper chance to investigate why this happens.

Robin

[MikeSki]

Thanks for the update Robin. It will be interesting to know where the problem is. Both my QHY163c and QHY163m show the issue.
Mike

[admin]

Hi Mike,

it turned out that one of the API calls I can make against the SDK to ask the working size of the sensor has different behaviour on some models of camera. On my 294MC and 585 it gives the full available size of the sensor and is useful to determine if the available size is different between live and still mode. On the 178MC and presumably your models it gives th ROI area if the camera is set into ROI mode. I could understand it doing either, but I wasn't expecting it to change based on the model in use!

cheers,

Robin

[MikeSki]

I used my 163c and 163m a couple of years ago to take pictures of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn using SharpCap and ROI without any problems. Perhaps something has changed in the driver maybe??? Other than the moon, it's not usable in it's present state to take planetary pictures.
Mike

[admin]

Hi Mike,

update will be out later today that will hopefully resolve the issue

cheers,

Robin

[MikeSki]

Do you have any updates on a possible software fix?

[admin]

Hi Mike,

I hope it's fixed in the latest updates you will find on our downloads page (not yet on auto-update). I managed to find the same problem happening with one of the cameras I had here, so could verify it fixed on that camera (and therefore hopefully on your model too)

cheers,

Robin