Two problems

james_screech

I have had the same two problems with my ASI1600mm-C the last two nights (the first clear nights I've been able to get out for months).

First when using short exposures for mount alignment and flats, some frames have bright bands (several pixels high) across them. This only appears to happen on short exposures of less then a second.

The second problem is that when taking longer exposures 10-15 sec (for photometery) my imaging software (APT) gets "stuck" downloading images occasionally, showing "Busy" in its status. On Saturday night this lost me about an hour of images as I did not notice it for a while. Stopping and restarting the APT plan re-started everything without an issue.

James

Support@ZWO

Hi there

Did you try other imaging softwares? We just want to make sure the issue is cause by camera or software.

james_screech

I haven't tried any other software. I haven't changed anything in the software since I was last using the camera. The short exposure issue was happening in about 10% of images. The download issue only happened once during each session (of 1000+ exposures), so cannot be re-produced on demand.

James

s3igell

This issue sounds like saturation of something in the USB3 connection chain - a low-quality cable or a Hub or Host Port that cannot keep-up with the volume of data generated by the ASI Cameras.

Try to reduce the USB3 Bandwidth. APT should have a setting that allows you to reduce the ASI Bandwidth - its exposed by the Driver and available in programs such as SharpCap3. (You could use SharpCap3 as a foil to test whether this is your issue.)

james_screech

s3igell wrote:
This issue sounds like saturation of something in the USB3 connection chain - a low-quality cable or a Hub or Host Port that cannot keep-up with the volume of data generated by the ASI Cameras.

Try to reduce the USB3 Bandwidth. APT should have a setting that allows you to reduce the ASI Bandwidth - its exposed by the Driver and available in programs such as SharpCap3. (You could use SharpCap3 as a foil to test whether this is your issue.)

My imaging laptop only has USB2 ports and that is all I've ever used with the ASI1600MM-C and the bandwidth is set at 40%, that was one of the first things I checked. The cable is the same one I've been using ever since I got the camera, I don't use a hub except the one in the ASI1600MM-C and I have an ASI120MM guide camera plugged in that (bandwidth 40% also), and that was not imaging when I was taking the flats & aligning the mount. The setup is exactly the same as I've been using ever since I bought the camera and I've never had these problems before.

James

Support@ZWO

Is there anything changed recently? Such as update OS, update ATP?

james_screech

I haven't updated APT recently, just the constant updates to Windows 10 that Microsoft force on all users.

James

Support@ZWO

OK, I see. Looks like some unstable problem happened after update OS, we don't know what is it.

could you try another capture softwares? we need to know if the issue is depand on software or not.

james_screech

Sean.Wang wrote:
OK, I see. Looks like some unstable problem happened after update OS, we don't know what is it.

could you try another capture softwares? we need to know if the issue is depand on software or not.

It may be a few days before I get a chance but I'll see what I can do.

James

james_screech

I’ve just tried taking flats again with apt and couldn’t reproduce the problem. I don’t think I’ve done anything different from the times when the problem occurred.

James

Support@ZWO

It's weird, if the issue appears again, please let us know.

james_screech

I had the short exposure bright bands problem again last night. Again about 1 in 10 images during mount alignment and flats.

James

Support@ZWO

Could you put some images on dropbox for us to check?

james_screech

Sean.Wang wrote:
Could you put some images on dropbox for us to check?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/np0wa4hf0smijex/Problem.zip?dl=0https://www.dropbox.com/s/np0wa4hf0smijex/Problem.zip?dl=0

Sam@ZWO

Hi James

we did not see such issue before

maybe you need to send this camera back for checking and repairing

james_screech

Sam wrote:
Hi James

we did not see such issue before

maybe you need to send this camera back for checking and repairing

Is there no other option? I would prefer not to have to send it all the way back to China from the UK and be without it for weeks when the problem is relatively minor.

James

Support@ZWO

For now, we don't have better solution. I'm thinking if roll back the win10 update, maybe the camera will works fine.

richardd

I had the same issue. But I decided to try other softwares. photo filters is probably the best one. Dozens of creative filters: vintage, analog, oil paint, comics and many others. You can beautiful photos and instantly share them to your favourite social networks.

Support@ZWO

RichardD wrote:

I had the same issue. But I decided to try other softwares.
'>photo filters is probably the best one. Dozens of creative filters: vintage, analog, oil paint, comics and many others. You can beautiful photos and instantly share them to your favourite social networks.

Thanks for feedback, looking forward to your test results.