Banding issues with ASI 178MC

jeffbax

Hello,

I am experiencing some banding issues with a new ASI 178 MC. Please check the picture here :

http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/663238m82coultestbandes.jpg

It is a stack of 1140 frames of 1sec each with AS!2. Pictures were taken through FC 2.5. 120 draks are applied.

Levels are stretched, but not as much as with my ASI 224 MC

Are these color bands normal and a known issue with this camera or should I return this one for an exchange ?

Thanks and happy new year.

Sam@ZWO

the image quality of 178 is not as good as 224

but I am not sure how those banding come from

you can try to enable "row noise correct" under "Image Calibration" to remove them

jeffbax

Thanks for answering Sam. But I can't find this option in FC.

Could someone give me a hint on what can cause this banding ? Electric interference ? usb cable ?

THKS

Sam@ZWO

jeffbax wrote:
Thanks for answering Sam. But I can't find this option in FC.

Could someone give me a hint on what can cause this banding ? Electric interference ? usb cable ?

THKS

JF

sorry, I mean AS!2

the banding looks like Electric interference

tomr

My ASI 178mc has this banding defect, too. I'm disappointed about this poor deep sky performance of the camera and the misleading advertisments.

jeffbax

Yes, I sold mine months ago because of this problem.

Sam@ZWO

please upload one raw image if your 178 have such problem

so we can check if it's hardware problem or other problem we can fix or not

usually there is no such obvious line noise

tomr

I tried to upload a single dark frame as .tiff extracted from the .ser video, but it didn't work. Maybe it's to large for an upload to your website. It's 12 MB.

So I uploaded a stretched jpg-Version of a masterdark-file instead. It displays a similar banding pattern as in Jeff's image.

MasterDark_asi178mc_3s_gain400_2grad_2.jpg

tomr

Helloho!

Is there any progress on this issue from the manufacturer of this camera?

Sam@ZWO

please send one email to us info(at)zwoptical.com

we need more info to check this problem

jeffbax

Sam, this issue is known. Don't act like ZWO is discovering Something. As I say, I sold mine due to this problem.

It is an actual and often reported problem on ASI 178.

For the the rest, I am testing my 7th ZWO (an ASI 294 MC).

Sam@ZWO

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tomr

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

Confucius must have been a hypocrite.

chad

Hi all,

Who can send me an email telling me how to repeat this issue?

Email Address: chad.cao(at)zwoptical.com

Thanks

Chad

tomr

Just put the lens cover on the camera, record a series of 1s dark frames, create a masterdark from it and stretch the image a little bit. Then have a look at what you are selling there.

chad

TomR wrote:
Just put the lens cover on the camera, record a series of 1s dark frames, create a masterdark from it and stretch the image a little bit. Then have a look at what you are selling there.

Thanks for your response～

I will repeat it.

Thanks

Chad

chad

TomR wrote:
Just put the lens cover on the camera, record a series of 1s dark frames, create a masterdark from it and stretch the image a little bit. Then have a look at what you are selling there.

Hi,

I checked, it works fine on my side～Same as I tested it before.

Please check the attachment.

Thanks

Chad

tomr

So what did you do there? Create a single dark frame, create a masterdark from a stack or something else? I don't understand much Chinese.

carsten

Hi everyone,

I had the same problem suddenly, but stumbled over a forum post https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/569505-what-causes-this-asi178mm-cool-banding-pattern/

The problem for me, like in this forum, wasn't the camera at all, but too much USB data traffic, which my laptop couldn't handle.

While I was using my Goto hand controler everything was fine, but when I switched to control my telescope via ASCOM,

the stripes started to appear.

I tried to reduce the USB traffic with a bluetooth mouse, but it wasn't enough. The easy, but not unproblematic fix due to increased amp glow,

is using a USB2 cable. It worked for me and I don't have stripes anymore, but like I said, more amp glow.

The forum post mentions a way to control the USB traffic in ASCOM/EQMOD, but I couldn't find it.

I hope this helps!

P.S.: I have the uncooled color version of the ASI 178

tomr

That looks promising to me. The noise pattern in CN looks similar to the pattern of my camera.

Better cripple the camera than having no usable camera at all.

USB traffic shouldn’t be that high for deep sky recordings, though. So that’s probably a problem of the camera driver. At least it should be able to report problems.

Anyway, I’ll give it a try.