Inactive Guiding Camera

[Farzad Khosrownia]

Hello,

I had not used my ASI 120 for along time since I acquired my ASI 1600 monochrome cooled camera and was just having unguided fun. The120 was always connected to my rig though, and I had it that way because I wanted to be working with a rig that I was familiar with, when the time came, and didn't want to suddenly figure out where to mount it, how to cable it, and how it could affect the balancing of the mount itself.

Two nights ago, and after having refreshed my little knowledge on PHD2 I decided to practice guiding. Everything went well with the initial setting of the imaging system and I was able to calibrate the guiding system and begin guiding. Shortly after I changed the filter to Ha and started to refocus the imaging system I started getting notices from PHD2 that the 120 has not been active inside a certain amount of time frame although there was a picture on the screen of the last scene it had imaged. I had thought that the image would now be blank. At the same time it appeared that SGP, busy with auto focusing, was not getting any images out of the 1600 either, and it wasn't coming out and saying that the 1600 wasn't imaging, it was just saying it was downloading an image and the download never finished.

I am checking around to see if anyone knows about a situation like this and if there is a suggestion for troubleshooting. I am going to contact ZWO also but I know what they will say already: "we suggest using dedicated USB port directly attached to the computer for best result"; and of course, that ain't gonna happen.

Thanks for any input.

Farzad

[Andy Galasso]

Farzad,

I think you're on the right track contacting ZWO as they would be the best source of help for this problem.

I will mention one thing to try though. If you have not done so already try enabling sub-frames in PHD2. That will greatly reduce the amount of USB traffic from the guide camera and may make the problem less likely to occur.

Andy

[Farzad Khosrownia]

Thanks, Andy, I will try that. I think the problem with the cameras was that I had chosen the same ASCOM camera for PHD2 and SGP.

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[Farzad Khosrownia]

Hi Andy,

I think I have isolated the problem - for now.

I don't remember the consequences of when PHD2 and SGP started competing on use of the same camera, leading to none of them being able to operate. I want to say that I had PHD2 configured when the system was connected and powered on to save myself from embarrassment but I am not really sure. It is highly likely that I configured PHD2 the same way as when I was using DSLR for imaging and the 120 for guiding.

What I did, and it seems it is working indoors for now, is that I physically disconnected the imaging camera (1600), left the 120 cabled, I powered the system up, launched PHD2 and went through the wizard and configured. Then without powering anything down, I connected the imaging camera and launched SGP, then attached the camera and everything else.

Right now I am indoors, having PHD2 loop, and SGP take pictures of the back of scope cover to see what happens.

I am not sure if there is anything in the user guide on camera conflicts, I haven't seen any, and I suggest it be looked into.

Farzad

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[Ken Self]

I think the problem stems from the ZWO ASCOM driver or the way it is built into various applications - I'm not sure which. But when you have two ZWO cameras, the ASCOM driver does not remember which one was connected when you go to change a setting. In my case it always defaults back to the ASI120MM and I have to select the ASI1600 again before changing any settings. If you fail to do this then you would have both PHD2 and SGP competing for the same camera.

[Farzad Khosrownia]

I agree with you. Until now I had no idea why after installing their ASCOM drivers I am getting (1) and (2). One other problem is that while in SGP it is easy to find which camera is associated with (1) or (2), I don't think it is as easy to do it with PHD2 when setting it up; and PHD2 has its own ZWO Camera selection also and it makes it a bit more confusing. Speaking of that, I know that PHD2 supports many cameras but I don't understand why the dropdown list should present all of them even though the user only has one specific camera. I thin PHD2 interface should show the simulator that is supported and it should show whatever the user is configuring and if it is supported.

I will keep my eyes on the cameras more closely.

Farzad

On Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 10:29 PM, Ken Self <ken.k...@gmail.com> wrote:

I think the problem stems from the ZWO ASCOM driver or the way it is built into various applications - I'm not sure which. But when you have two ZWO cameras, the ASCOM driver does not remember which one was connected when you go to change a setting. In my case it always defaults back to the ASI120MM and I have to select the ASI1600 again before changing any settings. If you fail to do this then you would have both PHD2 and SGP competing for the same camera.

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[Brian Valente]

I have two zwo cameras and use ascom driver just fine – they remember the camera and everything

 

However, it is REALLY confusing with ascom 1 and ascom 2 and then both cameras being available to each driver

 

 

 

Thanks

 

Brian

 

 

Brian Valente

Brianvalentephotography.com

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[Farzad Khosrownia]

Yes, and ZWO is a company with good cameras and not very good technical support.

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[Farzad Khosrownia]

This is the setup that seems to be working today: ASI Camera (1) set to ASI 1600 in SGP and ZWO ASI basic that comes with PHD2; I don't believe there is a choice there. What doesn't work is choosing ASI Camera (1) set to ASI 1600 on SGP and ASI Camera (2) set to ASI 120 in PHD2 at the same time. It could be the settings for the ASI 120 in Camera (2) that I am not familiar with. Since the camera appears in the PHD2 dropdown list of supported cameras maybe there is a setting that we should know about.

[Andy Galasso]

Farzad,

I'm not sure if this will help you, but I can explain how PHD2 deals with the multiple ZWO cameras.

When you select ZWO ASI Camera and you have multiple cameras connected, you would click the camera selection button to select which camera PHD2 will connect to:

When PHD2 connects to a ZWO camera, it has to indicate the ordinal number of which camera to connect to ("Camera 1", "Camera 2", etc.). PHD2 will remember your choice (the ordinal number) and connect to that same choice each time unless you change it by again clicking on the camera selection button.

I don't know it the camera numbering is changing on you depending on how and when the cameras are plugged-in to the computer.  This could potentially cause problems if, for example your guide camera is Camera 2 one day, and then next time it is Camera 1.   You could try clicking the camera selection button in PHD2 to see if the camera assignment order is changing.  Even if the order does not change, the number could change. For example I could imagine that with both cameras plugged-in the guide camera could be Camera #2.  Then later, if you just have the guide camera plugged in, it would now become Camera #1.

Please let us know if this is part of the problem. If so we can work with ZWO to come up with a solution. ZWO  has been very responsive in addressing driver issues and very good about working with the PHD2 developers.

Andy

[Farzad Khosrownia]

Hi Andy,

My equipment is now not powered and I can't re-try it, but I know for sure that in the edition of PHD2 that I have installed, and I believe it is the latest, I don't see what you are showing after clicking on select camera, I only see "Camera 1", that is all. But without pressing on that button, if I choose either (1) or (2) in SGP and make sure they are pointing to the 1600, then after selecting ZWO ASI Camera in PHD2 without any additional selection, there seem to be no conflict and confrontation between SGP and PHD2.

I have just started guiding again and haven't been able to get the two working together yet. Next time I am out will be my third attempt and I hope it will work out. My second attempt failed because I wasn't able to focus my guiding camera allegedly because I forgot to use my dew heater.

I will report back.

Thanks

Farzad

[Farzad Khosrownia]

Andy, Just reconnected everything and I can confirm that I see what you are showing and it seems to be working like a champ. Do you mind it if I copy and paste your discussion on a Facebook group discussion on same issue?

Thanks

Farzad

[Andy Galasso]

Sure, no problem. 

[Farzad Khosrownia]

Andy,

After selecting the guide camera as you showed, I have been running an incident-free session with SGP imaging black pictures and PHD2 chasing noise around like they are stars - but there has been no camera conflict issues.

Reading your message again and looking at the screenshot I shared with you I don't see any camera numbers and so I am not sure what you are referring to. The only time camera numbers come into picture is when the ASCOM drivers are selected in PHD2, and by the way, if the ZWO ASI Camera is all that we need why is it then that PHD2 shows the two ASCOM drivers? Are there any other uses for them?

Having a lot of cameras in the dropdown has always been a little confusing to me.

Hopefully we will get some clear skies here sometime soon and I can try out this new rhythm and will report back if there are any problems.

Thanks a lot.

Farzad

[Andy Galasso]

On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 11:33 PM, Farzad Khosrownia <farzad.k...@gmail.com> wrote:

if the ZWO ASI Camera is all that we need why is it then that PHD2 shows the two ASCOM drivers? Are there any other uses for them?

PHD2 will add an entry to the list for each installed ASCOM camera type, plus the built-in native (non-ASCOM) types. Some cameras like the ZWO have both a native driver and an ASCOM driver and so we show both options.  If you do not use the ASCOM camera driver you can uninstall it and it will no longer show up in the list.

Some people prefer to use the ASCOM driver, and other prefer the native driver, so PHD2 allows both options.

Having a lot of cameras in the dropdown has always been a little confusing to me.

Unfortunately phd2 has no way to know which cameras you have, so this will probably always be a bit confusing.

[Farzad Khosrownia]

Hi Andy,

As a matter of a follow up, I have been testing my setup with SGP connected via ASCOM and PHD via ZWO ASI and I have had no failures for several long sessions at home, inside. I got brave today and tried with SGP hooked up to ASCOM (1) and PHD to ASCOM (2), making sure the proper cameras are selected in each case and the session didn't last very long.

Farzad