Camera doesn't work at night

perene

First of all I tried using the asi120mc with the usb cable, there's another one i believe called st4, what does it do?

When I tried using at night with firecapture or sharpcap with auto settings the câmera simply didn't work and at first showed (in a very slow way) pictures from nearest buildings. After a while it simply refused to display any image at all, only showing a black screen. It was not a matter of focus, the câmera didn't show any blurred images from anywhere I pointed, it simply behaved as if using at night was not allowed.

What is going on ? I tried in the afternoon I believe 3, 4 PM and the image was displayed with no lags, not a single hint something was wrong. When I tried at night I brought the câmera to my garage outside my home to try and see anything. Perhaps the clouds affected the results? But you can clearly see using the eyepiece details from buildings.

And before this afternoon I cleaned the sensor using a specific tissue and isopropyl alcohol because using a blower and cottom swab (this one dry) didn't remove the particle of dust that was attached to the sensor and resulted in black dots in the image. After I cleaned the spots were gone although the câmera still had transparent stains in the image. A little better than before, although not 100% clean.

This night was my first test of the asi120mc in a dark environment. i wonder if cleaning the sensor resulted in this problem. Or perhaps I am not doing something right.

Sam@ZWO

Auto exposure is only used for all sky.

usually you need to turn it off because it will expousre to 30 second if its very dark.

so that means you have to wait 30s to get one image.

I don't think you waited so long

so the best way to test it under dark is just set the exposure to 50ms and gain 100

then adjust them slowly after you see the image.

perene

The camera worked at 10 AM as one can see from here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stcy4q2qIZs

So it is working. However from your explanation I was told you are speaking of DSOs, that's why you are saying to wait 30 seconds.

But I was trying to capture images from nearest buildings, stars, the Moon...

I don't know what to put here on this screen:

http://i.imgur.com/ljRwf7l.png

For example, let's say I am trying to capture the Moon. The camera is plugged, if needed you may adjust the focus... but what should I insert there in the GAIN, exp (ms) settings?

I was told for example to use between 12-20 ms to capture the Moon plus 1% gain. But in there you can only see a number (3600) for gain (not a %) and for exp (ms) you can see 0,000. So in this case, 12 ms would be 12 or 0,012? I don't get it.

What about the other options, such as PROFILE: MOON, Filter (currently L), GAMMA, Exp Range (currently 1.00-200 ms), Night mode (default: disabled), Binning 2x2, 16 bit... etc.?

The Firecapture website does not explain in details these settings.

I assumed you could capture anything at night if the telescope pointed out and the object had sufficient light to be seen when not using the ASI120MC and watching from the eyepiece perspective.

For example, if I point the telescope to a building where the room is illuminated using any eyepiece the image seems clear to me. Now if I put the ASI camera with all those default settings I can't see anything at all and the camera goes crazy perhaps because specific settings needs to be used for specific targets.

That was not the case when I tried to observe 10 A.M. a coconut as you can see from the Youtube picture. That didn't please me and I got frustrated after a while. However I wasn't able either to point to the Moon which would be the best object to do a test yesterday at night.

I mean, it's one thing to see a black screen and any object that needs a little adjustment in focus to form a picture, and another to fail completely to capture anything with the cam. That's why I thought the camera was defective.

riklaunim

You point the telescope at the Moon, you center it in the eyepiece, you put the camera and it must "just work". There is no way it won't show the brightness of the Moon - unless it's totally out of focus or the exposure and gain are "zero" (min values) due to some reason. You can start with having like 10-20ms of exposures and max gain - then the Moon will be a big blob of white light. When you have it you may start lowering gain and then exposure to get not-overexposed image.

What about the other options, such as PROFILE: MOON, Filter (currently L)

Thats just affect file names used to save AVIs and it also saves your setting for given filter/object. If you have an electric filter wheel the filter change may also change the filter.

GAMMA, Exp Range (currently 1.00-200 ms), Night mode (default: disabled), Binning 2x2, 16 bit... etc.?

Gamma stays default. Exposure range you can change if you need more/less than the current range provides. Night mode will just make the interface dark red or dark gray.

Binning can sometimes be used on very dim imaging of Jupiter in methane band etc. Not used for "normal" imaging. 16 bit also. In short you don't have to play with advanced settings for the camera to work and show the planet/Moon image properly.

For planets it's good to use a ROI (smaller subframe) that you can set in FireCapture - like 500 x 500. That makes smaller AVIs by saving only central part of the sensor frame, but it also allows faster framerate (for planets).