SharpCap Forums

Hello All,

I have been using a ZWO 1600MM pro cooled camera and lately it will not display images. Sharpcap picks it up fine and I can turn the cooler on and off and the aux USB ports work fine. Sharpcap also indicates that frames are being taken. All I get, however, is a black screen even when I shine a bright light directly onto the sensor and the frame rate is set to a second. Anyone have any ideas as to what is going on? Am I missing something? Thanks.

Bill

Hi Bill,

try holding the <CTRL> key down while opening the camera - this prevents SharpCap from reloading any previously saved camera settings or any default capture profile for the camera. I've seen cases where restoring settings can lead to a black image - a strong inverted level stretch or (on QHY cameras I think) odd values of gamma.

If that doesn't help, try another application to see if you see the same thing - if the other program is fine then you have ruled out a hardware issue.

cheers,

Robin

YEAH!! Worked! Nice piece of information that I didn't know about. Will definitely store that bit knowledge away in case something like this comes up again. Thanks a bunch!

Best, Bill

Hi Bill,

glad it worked - you can also turn off the auto-restoration of camera settings in the first page of the SharpCap settings, but the <CTRL> trick is better for doing it on a 'one off' basis.

cheers,

Robin

All very interesting . I mostly use a one-shot colour camera, but sometimes I use an ASI1600MM with filters. I did notice this week that SharpCap was not remembering some of my settings, notably to have the cooler come on, to use 16 bit and the exposure time. Could it be that I inadvertently turned a 'remember settings' control off?

That would be my guess. Do you have the box "Automatically restore last used camera settings" under the General tab, unchecked. If so, check it to save your settings.

Best, Bill