New free ZWO Camera control software

bigappleskies

AstroLive which is an awesome new camera /scope control software originally written for a number of other "Near Real Time" astronomy cameras has an all new version optimized for the complete line of ZWO cameras. Even better through a partnership with ZWO its free! Check it out:

http://astrolive.io/astroliveusb.html

ratchet

I downloaded it and I am testing it right now. So far so good!!

I was wondering how easy it would be to add other streaming services or be able to set your own server/key? Or are you tied to NSN?

Thanks,

ratchet

landbo

BigAppleSkies wrote:
AstroLive which is an awesome new camera /scope control software originally written for a number of other "Near Real Time" astronomy cameras has an all new version optimized for the complete line of ZWO cameras. Even better through a partnership with ZWO its free! Check it out:

http://astrolive.io/astroliveusb.html

Al

Tnx Al. Will test the program when it gets darker, with a small lens on my ASI224MC.

Regards Leif.

wargrafix

How wide a field do i need for plate solving?

eltanin

Downloaded it. Not working. No image displayed with any of my ASI USB3 cameras, crashes at once.

Using a Dell Inspiron notebook, Win10 64 bits, all the lattest ASI drivers.

Any suggestions? Maybe some Windows component?

Sam@ZWO

Eltanin wrote:
Downloaded it. Not working. No image displayed with any of my ASI USB3 cameras, crashes at once.

Using a Dell Inspiron notebook, Win10 64 bits, all the lattest ASI drivers.

Any suggestions? Maybe some Windows component?

which camera did you try?

eltanin

174MM, 224MC and 224MC Cooled

Sam@ZWO

it works well on my PC with these cameras

maybe you need to contact the author to find where is the problem

eltanin

Right.

Do you use Win10? Will check with the blog from Astrolive, maybe some prerequisite not installed in my system.

Sam@ZWO

I use win7, but I don't think it's a system problem

you'd better contact kyle

ivanrostas

Doesn't work for me. A blank white image, despite any gain level, or exposure time.

I had high hopes, as OACapture doesn't work for me, the interface radio buttons non responsive, with Preferences selections 'inverting' the UI selections. A complete dogs breakfast. Interestingly, Nebulosity demo version provides a frame and focus live preview, and a clean, functioning interface. May have to stump up for this.

The prospect of some free supported ZWO ASI120 software was very exciting.

Alright then, 'you'd better contact Kyle'.

Macbook 2016, 10.11.4

ASI 120MC (never a frame captured, sorry, USB 2 on Mac not supported, we'll change the website)

... hey, heres a discounted ASI 120MM-S... ah yes, sorry, only on supported USB chipsets, and ahh, no software but heres some third-party software...

Twice shy, yes indeed.

eltanin

Oh, boy! It works! 224 and 224 cooled, so far.

Not for planetary work, I think, only frame grabing, so, no high fps here.

Live stacking, temp control. Nice!

Of course, raining here.

High hopes on connecting it to mount/focuser/filter wheel, via INDI Server.

And, of course, the Win version works too, but if this delivers on a Mac, and for free, it will another game changing move. Thanks Kyle, and thanks Sam!

kgoodwin

ivanrostas wrote:
Doesn't work for me. A blank white image, despite any gain level, or exposure time.

I had high hopes, as OACapture doesn't work for me, the interface radio buttons non responsive, with Preferences selections 'inverting' the UI selections. A complete dogs breakfast. Interestingly, Nebulosity demo version provides a frame and focus live preview, and a clean, functioning interface. May have to stump up for this.

The prospect of some free supported ZWO ASI120 software was very exciting.

Alright then, 'you'd better contact Kyle'.

Macbook 2016, 10.11.4

ASI 120MC (never a frame captured, sorry, USB 2 on Mac not supported, we'll change the website)

... hey, heres a discounted ASI 120MM-S... ah yes, sorry, only on supported USB chipsets, and ahh, no software but heres some third-party software...

Twice shy, yes indeed.

ASI120 is a USB 2.0 camera. AstroLive USB only support USB 3.0 ZWO cameras. ASI 120MM-S is USB 3.0, but I have had several reports of issues with it. I don't have that particular camera to test. I'm working on looking into why it doesn't work with AstroLive USB.

kgoodwin

Eltanin wrote:
Oh, boy! It works! 224 and 224 cooled, so far.

Not for planetary work, I think, only frame grabing, so, no high fps here.

Live stacking, temp control. Nice!

Of course, raining here.

High hopes on connecting it to mount/focuser/filter wheel, via INDI Server.

And, of course, the Win version works too, but if this delivers on a Mac, and for free, it will another game changing move. Thanks Kyle, and thanks Sam!

Yes it is only for long exposure, not for planetary. Currently only mount and focusers are supported via INDI, I don't have filter wheel support yet.

kgoodwin

ratchet wrote:
I downloaded it and I am testing it right now. So far so good!!

I was wondering how easy it would be to add other streaming services or be able to set your own server/key? Or are you tied to NSN?

Thanks,

ratchet

I wrote the code for NSN as well, so it's a unified solution. I'm not planning to add support for other streaming solutions. It's certainly easy enough to do so with some other application like OBS to stream to YouTube Live for example.

kgoodwin

wargrafix wrote:
How wide a field do i need for plate solving?

A small field should work fine, astrometry.net plate solving is fairly robust. Unfortunately their servers are down sometimes. I have the ability to configure for a local install of astrometry.net. Documentations is forthcoming int he manual for how to set that up.

kgoodwin

Eltanin wrote:
174MM, 224MC and 224MC Cooled

I haven't had problems in testing with any of those cameras. I have the 224MC and 224MC-Cool and someone else I know has been using the 174MM. Try installing this from Microsoft to see if it helps:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784

ratchet

KGoodwin wrote:
ratchet wrote:I downloaded it and I am testing it right now. So far so good!!

I was wondering how easy it would be to add other streaming services or be able to set your own server/key? Or are you tied to NSN?

Thanks,

ratchet

I wrote the code for NSN as well, so it's a unified solution. I'm not planning to add support for other streaming solutions. It's certainly easy enough to do so with some other application like OBS to stream to YouTube Live for example.

OBS doesn't properly handle the RGB8 rendering, which based on my polling of ffmpeg is the only option in DirectShow. I'm setting up the dev environment to try to add it. Another amateur astronomer recently added Y800 to OBS without much trouble. My main problem is I took Computer Science 202 as an elective in 2004. HA!

Sam, are other outputs for DirectShow available using the SDK?

kgoodwin

ratchet wrote:
KGoodwin wrote:
ratchet wrote:I downloaded it and I am testing it right now. So far so good!!

I was wondering how easy it would be to add other streaming services or be able to set your own server/key? Or are you tied to NSN?

Thanks,

ratchet

I wrote the code for NSN as well, so it's a unified solution. I'm not planning to add support for other streaming solutions. It's certainly easy enough to do so with some other application like OBS to stream to YouTube Live for example.

OBS doesn't properly handle the RGB8 rendering, which based on my polling of ffmpeg is the only option in DirectShow. I'm setting up the dev environment to try to add it. Another amateur astronomer recently added Y800 to OBS without much trouble. My main problem is I took Computer Science 202 as an elective in 2004. HA!

Sam, are other outputs for DirectShow available using the SDK?

I may be misunderstanding what you're trying to do, but I wouldn't use DirectShow that way. What I would do is to have AstroLive USB or whatever other camera tool you use running and then use OBS to capture the area of the screen where it shows the image.

ratchet

I can't broadcast at full resolution with window capture because the laptop in the remote observatory is only 1366x768 native resolution which is less than the camera. So the image ends up being downscaled in the app, then upscaled in streaming. That's two quality hits before streaming compression (correct me if I am wrong). Also, we don't want the GUI. I've tried stretching the window beyond the desktop but OBS crashed hard...had to reset the computer. Ideally, we want to put out a 1920x1080 stream with the 1280x960 camera feed overlay directly centered for full solar/lunar full disk streaming + graphics/text border. This way we output a less altered image since the camera is at 1, and the only loss is compression. This is why I want some sort of native stream from the camera. I've got a handful of cameras that can do this (PGR Chameleon, QHY185, and QHY290) but the observatory I am volunteering at has a ZWO 120MM that I am trying to make work.

I can actually stream with the 120MM if I use ffmpeg from the command line. I read raw from the camera, and apply a greyscale filter (it tries to decode RGB8 as color), then convert to streamable format and send via rtmp. The problem is I don't think the greyscale filter stops the RGB encoding, so the image isn't 100% correct. The observatory is going to be ran by people who may not be computer savy, so I'd like to have all camera accessible from one app (probably OBS) and they can just click and choose what camera to feed out (we have ASI120MM, Mallincam Xterminator, and a SSAG in the finder - I'd prefer not to have that last one, but I didn't pick the equipment).

Robby